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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780305">the garlic thing is a myth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/pseuds/ishka'>ishka</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Free!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Gore, Demons, Drama, Gen, Horror, Humor, M/M, Romance, Vampires, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:09:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>97,161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/pseuds/ishka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a bad date, Sousuke's life goes to hell.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tachibana Makoto/Yamazaki Sousuke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. that one time sousuke died</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i started this in october with a short and silly halloween story in mind then that didn't happen. enjoy! or don't! it's about vampires and has frank sinatra lyrics in it it's not that deep.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sousuke couldn’t have known the date was a terrible idea when he said <em>oh lol sure I can do dinner</em> and the guy he swiped right on said<em> great where would you like to go</em> and Sousuke said <em>what about Zipp’s?</em> and the guy made a series of attempts to reply over the next half hour only to finally send <em>the sports bar? hm. what about zen-di-yaya? kombucha on tap :) </em>and Sousuke covered for the fact that he didn’t know what that meant by purposefully overshooting how stupid he is with <em>i can’t have dairy do they serve fries? if so, sure. </em>and that earned him a few emojis he felt pretty good about so he took that to mean<em> of course they do, silly. </em>immediately followed by <em>tomorrow at 8? </em>and that worked for him and left some wiggle room for a few drinks to round everything out if it went well so he agreed because the guy seemed into him, how bad could it be?</p><p>And so here he is, tomorrow at 8:43, imagining going back in time and walking in on himself as he flirted with Kombucha On Tap over Tinder and smacking the phone out of his hand before smacking himself.</p><p>It’s not the kombucha. That’s perfectly consumable. It’s like a seltzer water left out to go flat in the sun with pieces of overripe fruit in it then strained, recarbonized, and refrigerated to be passed off as something worth charging twelve hundred yen a glass for. Sousuke doesn’t mind a bit of ferment in his diet. A little zing. A punchy surprise. It wouldn’t be his first choice, and he’ll never have it again, but now he knows what it is and it’s better than that sordid, cursed period of time where everyone drank fucking charcoal.</p><p>He isn’t against a social media dictated trendy lifestyle, either. Admittedly, he is fascinated with the West’s idea of wellness, marketing enticing people to wholesomeness in an environment that sells those same people for parts. He has been known to take collagen peptides for a few weeks at a time in an attempt to smooth out his lines whenever someone guesses his age incorrectly (twenty-nine and holding but he looks “tired” a lot apparently so some people see forty-two) and he has fallen for the juice cleanse twice now, for the sum total cost of a rent payment, for the benefit of exactly nothing but pointless pain and suffering. He likes kale all right if he doesn’t know it’s there, he was already eating oatmeal as an adult when it was still uncool and dweeby, and he has had that non-dairy milk commitment on lock since he was seven. In fact, he has only appreciated the ludicrous demand forcing the market to diversify and compete. It drives down the price of the products that used to be double what they are now and makes things available in better flavors, like chocolate. Capitalism!</p><p>No, none of that. The problem is the guy.</p><p>“So, I was like, you know, you can’t fucking do that. You can’t say that I’m not in the wedding party anymore because you don’t want me showing you up? It’s really not my fault you don’t like my hair and I’m not going to change it just for you? I really thought we were best friends but apparently we’re really not because if she were my best friend she would let me be a groomsman in her wedding without forcing me to dye my hair, right?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“So, get this, we talk about it, and I explain to her—” He points to his curly pink mop. “—This? It’s me, kitten. This is me. And if you don’t like it then I can’t come to your wedding <em>at all</em>. And she’s like, fine, Kisumi, maybe it’s better if you don’t go anyway. And I want to tell her that I know this isn’t about my hair this is actually about the fact that I caught her husband-to-be cheating on her last month at our mutual friend’s brother’s ex-boyfriend’s party and she got mad at me for telling her! And she wants to marry him still? Of course I’m gonna think it’s a bad idea. I told her not to do it but I <em>also </em>told her I would still support her if she did. I’m her best friend! And she took that to mean I would cause a scene at her wedding! She made it about my hair because she knew I wouldn’t change it and would drop out altogether. The nerve! Oh, it’s such a mess, right, isn’t it so messy?”</p><p>“That’s wild.”</p><p>“You are a really good listener. So now I’m thinking I have to suck it up and go and it’s just hair, right? I can dye it dark and then bleach it back out and get this back no problem, but it would totally fry it, you know? It wouldn’t be this bouncy and wonderful if I did that and so I really have to ask myself if that’s worth it. If she’s willing to expel me from her wedding only because I did my part as her best friend and told her the truth about her fiance—</p><p>(somewhere in this run-on sentence Sousuke detects a heart murmur, like his organs are obediently shutting down as he wills his body to die instantly)</p><p>—then maybe we weren’t really best friends to begin with and once again my honesty and frankness have revealed people for who they really have been all along and it, like, really fucking sucks that I could lose her, honestly? She’s the best friend I have <em>ever </em>had and I thought she was my soulmate and would be here for me for my entire life after we met at Trance— the nightclub?— back in August when she was the <em>only one</em> who would strut the catwalk with me. You know when there’s just that spark?”</p><p>“That’s crazy.”</p><p>Kisumi sighs, morose, and downs his kombucha like it’ll do anything for his sobriety. Sousuke thinks maybe he’s finally done with his “why I was ten minutes late” opening monologue and they can move into phase two of the date, an arguable formality at this point. About halfway through the story Sousuke quietly switched his order from kombucha to craft beer with Kisumi nonethewiser, and the second one of those drops into his bloodstream approximately now. It’s not helping.</p><p>“Oh, God, <em>duh</em>, Sasuke, we better order some food.”</p><p>“It’s Sousuke.”</p><p>“You are hilarious. So I love the mac and cheese skillet here? It has lobster and it is to <em>die </em>for.”</p><p>Sousuke stares at him a beat too long. “For me it certainly could go that way.”</p><p>Kisumi smacks his forehead, sheepish, but in a performing way. “That’s right. The gluten. Celiacs, was it?”</p><p>“Can’t have dairy.”</p><p>“That’s terrible. Poor thing.”</p><p>“I manage.” Baffling. Yet somehow, Sousuke isn’t totally opposed to at least a sloppy make out yet. Handsome, even if airheaded, and Sousuke often falls victim to sunk cost fallacies. He needs to get something out of this abhorrent waste of time and usually a running mouth like that has some merit. “What do you do for a living, Kisumi?” This oughta be good. Social media marketing for a subscription underwear service, if Sousuke were a betting man.</p><p>“Oh! I’m a biochemist. I help develop therapeutics for blood diseases right now, but my doctorate was in gene therapy for autoimmune diseases.”</p><p>Sousuke isn’t a betting man. “You’re kidding.”</p><p>“I know, right? Like, can we figure this degenerative vein thing out so I can get back to acute lymphoblastic leukemia?” He rolls his eyes. “So lame. Ooo what about you? Wait, no, let me guess.” He squints at Sousuke, appraising, then sits back, smug. “Dog catcher.”</p><p>“You flatter me. Food prep at the family restaurant. Seafood and other things that aren’t seafood but taste that way anyway due to proximity.”</p><p>“Aww,” Kisumi coos, “so close to all that fish and you can’t even have any.”</p><p>“I—” Nope. Not worth it. “You’re right. Every day is agony.”</p><p>The waiter timidly approaches their table with a weariness Sousuke shares, ready to be silently shooed away by Kisumi’s scuttling hand for the fifth or sixth time since they sat down and visibly relieved when Kisumi smiles at him instead. “There you are! I would love that lobster skillet mac, if you please.”</p><p>The waiter looks to Sousuke, standing taller in solidarity when he sees Sousuke is just as beaten down as he is. “Grilled chicken. Side of fries. Another of these.” He gestures to the empty beer glass. “Thanks.”</p><p>Kisumi shimmies his shoulders after the waiter retreats to safety. “Love this place. He’s such a sweetheart. So…” Kisumi’s gaze sharpens and cuts through the miasmic cloud of stupidity he’s been exhaling for the better part of an hour. “You heard <em>my</em> pitch. What can I do for you?”</p><p>Sousuke isn’t sure what that means, but he has a hunch he won’t like where it goes. “I’m dating? Looking for something serious?” He can’t help but actually ask: “Did you read my profile at all?”</p><p>Kisumi laughs from down deep, as if it’s the most absurd thing he’s heard today. “No one can see your profile over the size of those arms, doll. I matched for a little high profile, Instagrammable fun and ultimately, a plus one to a wedding. We would make that bridal party <em>so</em> jealous. What do you say? I mean, <em>I’m</em> not looking for anything serious with a guy like you but we can stay in touch? I can fake being steady for your friends if that’s a compromise. That might be fun too. You’re just so…” He purses his lips. “Simple. Minimalistic.”</p><p>A guy like… dammit. Is that technically an insult-laced rejection? It stings worse than Sousuke would like to admit given he wouldn’t date this guy at this point if he had a gun to his head. “Yeeeah,” he elongates as he pushes back from the table in equal pitch to the chair legs scraping across the floor, “I don’t think I’m what you’re looking for, Kisumi.”</p><p>Somehow Kisumi is crestfallen, lips apart in surprise. “Aww! Come on Daisuke, you’re so stiff. We’d have a good time at the wedding, we have so much aesthetic chemistry. Dark and light, bubbly and broody, extravagant and humble. It’s perfect. Lighten up.”</p><p>A condescending phrase which sours his already set frown. He stands. There are two five-thousand yen bills in his wallet and he’s not about to pay for Kisumi’s share like he originally planned. One bill is way more than his share so far. Fuck it, Kisumi’s a doctor or watever. “I’m gonna use the restroom. I‘ll think about it.”</p><p>“You won’t regret it!”</p><p>He’s correct. Sousuke walks towards the restrooms then makes a hard left for the back exit. He spills out into the frigid October embrace of a pitch black side alley and wastes no time whipping his phone out, deleting his profile, and uninstalling the app. It has been nothing but a disappointment, match after match, and a total drain on his meager finances to add insult to injury. Sei will be happy for that at least; Sousuke hasn’t had the slush fund to contribute to the junk food cabinet in months.</p><p>And for at least one more night, he still won’t. That’s ten thousand burning a hole in his pocket that was earmarked for an investment into a courtship he will no longer be making. The whole damn process is such a nightmare. Cyclical, too. Sousuke dives headfirst into it for a few months, inevitably meets worse and worse people leading up to a Kisumi, backs off for a few months, forgets why he hates it when he meets someone nice, it doesn’t work out, he dives back in, he meets a Kisumi.</p><p>The only salvageable part of his original plan now is a hard drink. Top shelf, if he’s just paying for himself, and he already had a warm up. No work tomorrow. He’s clear to seek a burning, liquid balm for a wounded pride and disappointed heart among the similarly troubled. The solidarity can be comforting and it’s better than another night in his room mindlessly doomscrolling the panic feeds. Not the worst contingency.</p><p>Phone still out, he scours the area for the nearest shithouse bar. The ones that don’t have reviews or phone numbers listed, because it means no one there is interested in customer service or memory-making. Sad locals only.</p><p>Ah, there. Yes. Lovely. The Last Drop. Sounds shitty. A good place to collect.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>In truth, Sousuke isn’t much of a drinker. The allure of a bar after a trying day is a cultural compulsion that wins out only if he isn’t ready to go home yet. Going home is accepting defeat. There is still fight in him, still a chance for <em>a guy like him</em> to end it on a good note if he can find someone interesting to talk to, even if he only ends up listening to another tale of why someone’s wife (understandably) left him. He’s introverted, not antisocial.</p><p>But The Last Drop is just not that kind of place. It’s moody, downright dungeon-esque. It’s incredibly dark and its fixtures ironwood wrought, a medieval backdrop begging for mysteriously sourced fog and a boggy, musky atmosphere. It does not look like it belongs in a seaside town in Japan. Despite what it should feel and look like, it is dry and clean. Its patrons must choose it because it does not encourage rowdiness or conversation at all, as all two customers he can spot keep to themselves within the confines of their barstool or high top, which are all spaced just far enough apart to make leaning over for a hello appear desperate.</p><p>His zeal for a top-shelf choice died at the door’s threshold, as if the place is under incantation to forbid joy or anticipation into itself. Ultimately he was still drawn in by a sad little melody lapping at the baseboards near the entrance, an atypical finding in any bar. Either the live music is obnoxiously loud and electric guitar forward or there is no live music. This is soft and storied acoustic. Simple, but practiced. More an exploration of an amorphous idea than a typical three-chord progression.</p><p>Its creator has entrapped nearly all of Sousuke’s attention. The other patrons, perhaps used to the performer, pay him little mind. But for Sousuke, it possesses the allure of a Siren’s song. Is that the right myth? If he’s thinking about it he’s still in control of his faculties so probably not. He’d love to know what the guitarist looked like better than he can see in this dismal lighting, but from here he only makes out a lean silhouette and the suggestion of a tranquil, soft face. He’s wearing black, his hair is black, and he isn’t looking out into the bar. Only plucking away at nothing in particular, but in that captivating way. Any time he turns his head to look up the neck of his guitar for his positioning, what should be a full view of his face from Sousuke’s perspective is a hazy spot on his vision.</p><p>Sousuke nurses the same watered down lager he ordered when he sat down an hour prior. The bartender was quick to deliver and quicker to disappear again; Sousuke can’t for the life of him recall what he looked like or if he spoke at all. His mind serves up a wiggly, human-shaped mirage, like heat radiating off of pavement in summertime.</p><p>He concedes he may be more buzzed from his sad two beer pregame than he thought, without dinner to slow down the flood of alcohol into his bloodstream, if he can’t see what people look like less than a few feet in front of him. Well, that’s fine. He has the music to keep him company. Though the lyrics are boring and rote, at least they placate him. Who is singing, he couldn’t say, but the words aren’t so much as spoken as forming as bracketed concepts between his thoughts.</p><p>
  <em>—Something in your eyes</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Was so inviting</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Something in your smile</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Was so exciting—</em>
</p><p>After some time under this spell Sousuke thinks to tip the performer, as is the polite thing to do. He rises from his stool, a stiff and ancient settlement in his joints jostles free through a series of pops and cracks. How long has he been here? No clocks, why would there be, can’t see them, but it is noticeably later, perhaps time to call it a night.</p><p>Yet, as he approaches the performer, there is no open guitar case or repurposed coffee tin or any sign of tipping or expectation to tip whatsoever. He’s instantly self-conscious of his decision to approach the man at all, who, as soon as Sousuke gets within spitting distance of, abruptly stops playing and throws the dingy hypnotic vibe of the dungeon-bar askance. What’s more, when Sousuke dares to look at what he is now conditioned to believe is a foggy face he can’t quite make out, he’s instead met with a sharp visage in stunning clarity. His eyes are so bright and blue and direct that Sousuke’s chest contracts and feet stick to the floor, fight or flight in flux and indecisive.</p><p>“S...Sorry,” he eventually gets past his higher thought embargo. It’s all he can think could be appropriate, given this man’s otherworldly stare is, by his most optimistic outlook, attempting to decapitate him telepathically.</p><p>“Haru.” Firm, from over his shoulder, right next to him though no one is there. The clarity of it in his ear against all the muffled acoustic sounds hitherto that could easily have been mistaken as coming from another carpeted room sends the convulsion in his chest to reverberate down his spine. It’s creepy, in short.</p><p>It also does the work of unsticking Sousuke from the floor. He steps back in retreat and the performer, Haru, spares his life and resumes his play. A man with a clearer head might leave at this point, as he intended to a moment ago. But Sousuke turns around and loses balance, his insides slosh to the side, and he instead decides to get some water first to relocate his bearings. Now he’s not unconvinced that Kisumi didn’t drop something into his drink, as preposterous as that thought is as soon as it forms in his head. He was an idiot-genius, not a monster.</p><p>Acute sounds fade again into the ambiance, overtaken by guitar. The Mirage Bartender is now a television channel with glitchy interference. Sections of him distort in opposite directions and Sousuke’s mind fights to stitch him back together to make it whole. Back at the bar, he holds onto the edge to steady and forces himself to focus, catching green eyes in the corners of his vision that seemingly originate from a parallel universe. There, in front of him, but not there.</p><p>
  <em>—Something in my heart told me I must have you</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Strangers in the night, two lonely people—</em>
</p><p>“Water, please,” he manages. Which then, to no surprise at all at this point, appears before him. “Thank you.”</p><p>“You should sit down.” The same voice who identified the guitarist.</p><p>“I’m gonna leave.”</p><p>“Sit first.”</p><p>“Okay.” He grits his teeth as he obeys, as he is both compelled to do it and resistant to the command. To compromise, he forces his focus forward again, the strain it requires to keep the bartender in focus is headache-inducing. TV Glitch seems surprised, the peripheral green eyes momentarily centering and making clear his face. He, too, is striking. Elegant, earnest features, a natural openness in the downward slope of his eyes and natural bow on his lip beneath shaggy, but naturally so, brown hair. “Something’s weird.”</p><p>“I know. Just listen for a few minutes. Close your eyes. You’ll be fine again soon, then you can leave.”</p><p>“And that’s a weird thing to say.” He succumbs anyway, eye strain proving too overwhelming now. He looks down and away, and sips the water. The headache ebbs, the lull of the music resettles his inner turmoil.</p><p>
  <em>—It turned out so right</em>
  <br/>
  <em>For strangers in the night—</em>
</p><p>But through it he clings to the clarion memory of their eyes, and does not allow their faces to morph into disrecognition again. When he is feeling less like the room is spinning, he opens his own eyes again and looks for TV Glitch despite already knowing he is no longer standing obviously in front of him. Sousuke does not believe it means he isn’t there, though. “Didn’t mean to spook your friend.”</p><p>The answer comes from empty space all around. It’s a heavy tone laced with a deep seated forlornness unbecoming of its higher pitch and soothing delivery. “It’s all right. He’s just not used to anyone seeing him there.”</p><p>“Well it is pretty fuckin’ dark in here.”</p><p>Even holding this conversation is taxing. It goes against that invisible incantation from the entrance, somehow, to speak to this man. The layout discourages general socialization on purpose, Sousuke already assumed, and is not only a consequence of a bad blueprint. But this is beyond that.</p><p>“That’s so you’ll listen instead of look,” TV Glitch responds. “Or talk.”</p><p>“I came here to talk,” he says, dismissing the obvious hint. “I- dammit.” He winces. Every word is a sprint into a strong headwind and comes out thick and sluggish. “I want someone to talk to.”</p><p>“I’m surprised you still can, frankly.”</p><p>Mocking him is sure to spite him onward, if that’s what that was. “Of course I can. I’m Sousuke.”</p><p>“Well Sousuke. I’m sorry it can’t be me you talk to.” The words begin to echo, the inherent grief doubled down and overlapping on itself in a spectral overlay. The spoken sorry is one of genuine regret.</p><p>“Who is <em>me</em>,” Sousuke protests more than asks. “Who are you?”</p><p>“No one you’ll remember once you leave.” Sousuke strains his focus again against the empty space before him. It fucking shimmers. It’s not real, can’t be. “Last call is now. Finish your water, go home, and get some sleep.”</p><p>Suddenly, the music overtakes him, and his surroundings dissolve. The wavy illusion weakens, just enough for Sousuke to meet those glowing green eyes head on, because TV Glitch never left and Sousuke called that one, and TV Glitch is taken aback by his defiance, and Sousuke’s determined to get to the bottom of this,</p><p>
  <em>—It turned out so right</em>
  <br/>
  <em>For strangers in the night—</em>
</p><p>determined to figure out,</p><hr/><p> </p><p>where the fuck he is.</p><p>A street corner, in the illuminated cone beneath a tall incandescent street lamp.</p><p>His knees ache from being locked out and his back is compressed and the cold is downright bitter, biting clean through his moto jacket and jeans. The slosh in his skull is gone, better than gone, as if it were never there. No imbalance, no woozy-fuzzy-headedness, no buzz. Just normal, but… lacking.</p><p>He looks around. The streets are <em>empty</em>-empty. Like, “everyone in town has been asleep for hours by now” sort of empty. It doesn’t make sense. He bailed on Kisumi around nine, and it’s a Satu— he digs his phone from his pocket— correction: it’s Sunday. Specifically, it’s three in the morning.</p><p>What the fuck.</p><p>He is easily three kilometers from the restaurant, off in a direction that is opposite his apartment and nowhere near any place he would normally go. He’s near the beach; he can hear it. Otherwise, there is no taste on his tongue, no smell on his clothes, lending any insight into the last six hours.</p><p>His heart pounds harder and faster the fewer answers he comes up with as he roots around in his memories for a timeline. Being alone in the dark on an eerie, foggy road near no signs of life doesn’t help to lessen the pressure trying to force him to remember an evening he has clearly, utterly, forgotten. Footage not found. Footage never recorded.</p><p>Maybe… Sei? Did he bring something, perhaps, <em>illicit</em> home? A throw back to college stupidity? He shoots his roommate a text.</p><p>
  <em>very funny asshole. wtf did u give me this time?</em>
</p><p>The response takes only a minute, but for Sousuke’s frayed nerves it’s another hour: <em>its 3am</em> <em>r u stupid fuck off</em></p><p>Not Sei then, who would enthusiastically own up to a prank that spectacular.</p><p>The comparatively thunderous rattle of an aluminum can startles his skeleton clear out of his skin. The wind dislodges it from whatever corner it fell into and sends it rolling clear across the road towards him, stopped only by his boot. His breath contracts into short puffs, his hand twists in his shirt over his sternum. Goosebumps rise on his arms and his shoulders bunch to raise the collar of his jacket up around the back of his unprotected, breeze-tickled neck.</p><p>“It’s a fucking can,” he self-soothes. Paranoid. Spooked. He needs to get out of here first, and worry about how he got here later. Shake off this edge, get some sleep. He reorients himself and faces the approximate way back home.</p><p>The sea is loud from where he’s standing; even separated from it by a single row of storefronts, the churning water carries over. The wind is whipping the waves into the shoreline with impunity. He doesn’t like how the roar dulls his senses to his surroundings, and wastes no more time standing around looking like a dumb piece of meat.</p><p>His walk up the street is little different from a child’s frenzied sprint up a flight of stairs after they’ve turned the lights off behind them. He should be walking away from the shore, he made sure of his path before he started on it, but the rushing does not fade. Actually, it’s louder. He stops, confusion giving to agitation, because he looks up into the searing light of the same incandescent street lamp he started under. Now, each lurch of his heart takes a dive off a cliff before its bungee back up. He skin pricks with sweat, immediately dispersed by the frigid wind.</p><p>He tries again. Apartment, east. Road sign, confirmed. Step. He power walks it, he doesn’t blink, but his eyes water and sting as they dry out, and eventually he must blink against his will.</p><p>Open to</p><p>A street corner, in the illuminated cone beneath a tall incandescent street lamp. He breathes, gasping, far too long after the sludge building up in his blood informs him he has stopped.</p><p>This time, though;</p><p>Over the roar of the waves and howl of the wind;</p><p>A song?</p><p>The street lamp fizzles and pops, on and off. Sousuke turns down and away from the commotion overhead and covers his head on instinct, slinking towards the darkened storefronts. The song isn’t louder than the sea but is still paradoxically carrying clear over it. It can’t be a language Sousuke understands, or even recognizes. It’s not words. It’s just sound. But he <em>knows</em> this song that he’s never heard before. Something in him braces for its progression, something in him knows what’s coming the closer it gets.</p><p>
  <em>—Wondering in the night</em>
  <br/>
  <em>What were the chances—</em>
</p><p>It punctures him. It weaves between the slats of his ribs and pulls down in a cinch at the bottom, collapsing his insides into a coin purse made of bone. He chokes back a wail. In an instant, he has lost everything in the world he ever had, but this isn’t <em>him</em>. His body isn’t his. He nearly drops to a kneel, so blindsided and overtaken with a visceral, agonizing pain, and is simultaneously aware it is not literally real.</p><p>
  <em>—We'd be sharing love</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Before the night was through?—</em>
</p><p>And then just as effortlessly, the song stops, and he can stand straight again. With the resharpening of his senses comes a fresh shudder down his flank. He’s being watched and it’s burning into the back of his head, dancing across the nape of his neck.</p><p>Sousuke whirls around, partially crouched. In the middle of the street are two figures, side by side, the black-haired one a head shorter than the brown-haired one. They’re dressed for the weather, in solid blacks and patterned autumnals, respectively. They look like a fit and trim set of twenty-nine and holdings. That part is normal for a town in Japan. What isn’t normal are their fucking eyes, which glow a ghostly blue and green and send Sousuke back a full step further into the retreat of darkness.</p><p>“Didn’t you tell him to go home and sleep?” asks the blue-eyed one. Sousuke’s head pangs then, a sharp, stabbing throb behind his eyes.</p><p>“I did,” replies the other, stabbing a second bolt of pain through Sousuke’s head behind the first. “I guess I’m a bit rusty.”</p><p>“Your heart wasn’t in it, maybe.”</p><p>This is some sort of joke between them apparently, because they laugh. “You’re right.” Green Eyes hasn’t lost Sousuke in the dark at all, trained on his every twitch with a heaviness that one would use on an injured stray dog that isn’t going to make it. “What should we do about it?”</p><p>“Try again, if you think you can make it stick this time.”</p><p>“And if I can’t?”</p><p>“You know the answer to that question.”</p><p>Death. Definitely. They’re going to kill him if it doesn’t stick. That’s acutely apparent.</p><p>Green Eyes sighs. “I wish you could do this, Haru. It’s really not something I enjoy doing to people.”</p><p>Another stab. Sousuke gasps through the pain, earning a death glare from Blue Eyes. The next head-clenching spasm comes with answers this time: <em>Haru. </em>The blue-eyed Haru at The Last Drop that wanted to decapitate him for interrupting his music and the Mirage-Bartender-gone-TV-Glitch that stopped him then sounded so sad and miserable and <em>and</em></p><p>“Fucking wait a minute,” Sousuke demands, hands releasing his skull. “You’re the two from that… that… dungeon bar. What the hell did you do to me? Who the fuck are you?! Why am I here?!”</p><p>“You’re annoyingly resistant to us,” Haru tells him. “That’s why you’re here.”</p><p>Green Eyes takes a step forward, partially into the flickering light of the streetlamp, which then dims altogether. Enough to keep him visible but not fully illuminated, still in the road but nearer the gutter. “Sousuke,” he says amicably enough, “I really do want you to go home and forget all about this.”</p><p>On cue, the figures before him distort like before in the bar. They glitch, pull apart, waver, and particulate. Sousuke connects a few free-floating dots ponging around in his carpet bombed head and determines <em>they </em>are warping his perception, somehow. These suggestions to go home have <em>umph </em>behind them, they’re attempting to force him to comply, and Sousuke has the horror-inducing realization that they can do this at all, they can shroud themselves and control his will. No, fuck that. They can try but they’re not going to.</p><p>He pushes against the body that’s already succumbed to trying to turn and walk off. Green eyes. Green eyes. Focus. Stand straight. Confront.</p><p>“Cut it out,” he says. “I’m not falling for it again. Back off.”</p><p>This, of course, is a threat he has little ability to follow through on. Something tells Sousuke his larger-than-average size won’t be an intimidation factor like it usually is with people who aren’t what? Human? People that can literally hypnotize him? He could laugh.</p><p>“This is unfortunate,” Haru replies in earnest, “for everyone here.”</p><p>Green Eyes doesn’t move. His face and shoulders fall though, the glow of his eyes fades. By contrast, Haru radiates a terrible pressure, an energy unleashed from heavy chains. His first step towards Sousuke appears light but lands with considerable heft and shake. His second step is denser still, putting a tremor on Sousuke’s edges and setting a five-alarm fire in his gut. The air shifts, electrified. Haru isn’t stopping at the sidewalk like his friend. Reality sets in fast: holy fucking shit this discount late stage goth is literally going to kill him with invisible fucking super powers.</p><p>As any respectable human would do in this situation, Sousuke bolts.</p><p>A <em>whomp</em> behind him assures him he is pursued. It’s on him immediately, it’s a black hole nipping at his heels and threatening to unravel him into spaghetti noodles if it gets him. He sprints full tilt down the street, he is approaching flight by how sparingly either foot touches the ground, and still the effort makes no difference, wins no distance. The void behind him could grab him at any time, the maw holds him in its jaws. Toying with him? Reluctant to bite down? His rational brain desperately asserts this is just some freakishly real nightmare, which helps keep him from screaming, maybe. But his very unreal escape attempt is cut short. He takes a now very real tumble to the ground, tripped by the void that’s trying to eat him, protected from road rash only by the grace of his clothing.</p><p>Sousuke rolls off his stomach and scuttles backwards on his hands and heels. Haru is perfectly human-formed, walking in no rush after him. He is the maw, the maw is there, and he is not and it is not and it may as well be two separate dimensions here, like Green Eye’s overlapping spectral voice from before.</p><p>“Sorry,” an incalculable number of overlapping Haru’s say at once that is now the last terrifying thing Sousuke will ever hear.</p><p>“Haru, <em>stop!</em>”</p><p>Mid-action, an action clearly committed to murder despite its deceptively simple forward lean, Haru freezes on (echoing, kaleidoscopic) command. The void-maw he is and is not convulses and fractures its bite around an invisible barrier before giving in and shattering, taking its multi-dimensional reality warping bullshit with it. Haru stumbles back as if he’s taken a bludgeoning blow to the chest. He grunts and staggers to full height, then looks past Sousuke into the street behind him with something of a haggard gaze.</p><p>“Makoto.” Makoto, then. It was a long nickname journey to this point. “That was reckless.” His voice is even and level, but Sousuke wouldn’t call it warm.</p><p>“Let him go.” Makoto is winded and weak. How did he get in front of them both?</p><p>“Let <em>me</em> go,” Haru answers.</p><p>“No.” Fiery defiance. “Promise me first.”</p><p>“We can’t do what you want to do here. He saw us.”</p><p>“I don’t know shit,” Sousuke cuts in, sensing an opportunity. “I didn’t see shit! Who would believe me?!”</p><p>“Shut up,” Haru sighs.</p><p>“This is my fault,” Makoto continues. “Don’t punish him for my mistake.”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was now. This is dangerous. What’s gotten into you?”</p><p>As they begin to argue, Sousuke slowly gets back to his feet. His elbow took a whack at the pavement and lost and his full-on sprint has him lacking for verve but he is otherwise intact. He knows fuckall what they’re talking about now but they’re deep in it and it seems the less he knows, the better. He isn’t about to get curious after all this, only planning to eavesdrop enough to find a way out of this situation from actual hell.</p><p>As he should expect by now, his best laid plan will not come to pass.</p><p>A simultaneous number of tiny stupid things occur. Haru’s and Makoto’s argument evolves into something personal, beyond Sousuke’s comprehension, involving a lot of hurt and pent up frustration that occupies all of their attention. Literally beyond his comprehension. Someone has done some magic shit again and scrambled it to his ear.</p><p>Their chase has taken them to the bottom of a curve down south of a well-traversed intersection. The sound of the occasional vehicle rumbles through the air, not many given the time, but a serviceable number that would clue someone in to the idea that the road is not a particularly safe place to stand. In the dark. Around a bend. Anyone driving at this time would be coming off shift, going on shift, drunk, tired, or a combination of these factors, and slow to respond to anything in the way. Finally, the last tiny stupid thing that happens is Sousuke realizes Makoto is in imminent danger of being mowed down by a large shipping truck and not aware of it whatsoever.</p><p>All of this amounts to a large stupid thing because these two are sort of trying to kill him but Makoto is at least trying to think it through first and Sousuke respects his restraint and some damnably human thing about him doesn’t want to see another person (?) smeared across the pavement by a gazillion ton shipping truck no matter how weird or melancholy or eldritch horror-esque they are and well between him and himself he can think of a few people he wouldn’t immediately spring into action for in the same situation but this guy isn’t one of those people those people are worse than eldritch horrors they’re university exes and <em>so</em></p><p>There is no time for a verbal warning and they might not hear him anyway if the barreling fucking truck isn’t enough to break up the argument there isn’t even time to take any of these thoughts to completion it’s more like a time-frozen extrapolation of JUMP NOW JUMP NOW which is what he’s already doing.</p><p>A shout containing the gist of all of the above and a yelp and a violent body collision and a <em>shove</em> with everything he has—</p><p>There is a burst of static, fuzzy snow, and then he is not in himself anymore. He observes his body break down into an explosion of atoms. It falls in a wall of dazzling embers. They fade out of existence one by one until the very last, lingering particle, reaches its apex and arcs into a downward see-sawing sway. Back and forth, flickering but never fully extinguished, darker and deeper. If it goes out...</p><p>Then it reignites, white hot, and the abyss around it melts away in bubbling patches like an old film reel. Wrathful, starving vines snake up his limbs and body, encasing him. In the gaps of the universe where the abyss melted away, dozens of pairs of eyes open all at once and look directly at him. The feeling, thinking prison constricts up his body, to his head, and smothers him. He is wrenched from this place, and placed somewhere else.</p><p>Sousuke’s gasp is painful and vocal and he sits up so fast he topples forward on his own momentum. He gulps in air and funny, he doesn’t seem to be getting any, so he claws at his constricted chest and throat with his trembling hands for all the good that will do. He jerks his head up to the gurgle of a distant diesel engine. The delivery truck that should’ve just potato riced him through its metal honeycomb grill continues on its way far down the road, unbothered.</p><p>No no no this isn’t right. He lurches to the side and fights back dry heaves now on top of hypoxia. Gravel off the road embeds in the heels of his palms and his body locks up in its present contortion. “I can’t <em>fucking</em>—” breathe, finish the sentence, believe this shit, et cetera.</p><p>“Shh, Sousuke. You’re okay.”</p><p>A simple hand on his back may as well be an intervention by some benevolent god itself. It recenters his spinning world and reconnects him to the ground. The startle of it bumps a hiccup into his frenetic heaving and gasping and it’s enough to coax his airways and lungs to broker a peace and synchronize again. Steady now, Sousuke comes down from the top of the peak of despair. A high ringing in his ears fades away, replaced with the middle of a gentle conversation.</p><p>“—is not good.”</p><p>“What do I do?” A terrified Makoto.</p><p>“I don’t know.” A softer Haru.</p><p>“Haru,” his voice wavers, “this is…”</p><p>“Not good.”</p><p>“So what do I do?”</p><p>Sousuke knows a dirge of spiralling hopelessness when he hears it. Returning to baseline, as well as he can anyway given he does not understand how he is alive right now, he presses back into the hand between his shoulder blades and tries once more to sit up. It goes better this time.</p><p>Next to him, Makoto holds a squat as he addresses his lamentations with Haru. When he feels Sousuke shift, he takes his hand back and stands, but the movement is difficult for him. As a stiff hand on his back has literally been the only kind gesture afforded Sousuke in the midst of this sequence of escalating horrors tonight, he misses its simple unconditional empathy when it’s gone.</p><p>Haru looks at him once he notices the shift. The homicidal disdain is less severe. Some might see pity. Sousuke’s more confident they’re not killing him now because he should already be dead. Is that a real thing he just thought? God, he is so tired.</p><p>In testament, his voice is cracked and parched when he speaks. “What. The <em>fuck</em>. Is going on?” If Haru pities him, Makoto is downright afraid of him. This does nothing for his general comprehension. They exchange glances, but say nothing. “Hello? I know you can hear me, assholes. Why were you trying to eat me? Why aren’t I road pizza?”</p><p>This is offensive, apparently. Haru scoffs. “<em>Eat </em>you? That’s disgusting.”</p><p>“What would you call that?!”</p><p>“A relocation.”</p><p>“To where?! Hell?!”</p><p>Sousuke checks to make sure his jaw hasn’t dropped to the floor when they exchange uneasy glances again. “You were—”</p><p>“It’s not hell,” Makoto interrupts in a way that only someone who knows the ability to send another person to hell definitely exists would interrupt. “I mean… people all have different interpretations… but it’s not.”</p><p>So it is. “...Okay moving on to the next question in the interest of time.”</p><p>Makoto’s smile is a pathetic excuse for one. “I think we should talk about it somewhere else.”</p><p>“I’m not going anywhere with either of you.” His bravado is surely undercut by the fact that he’s still sitting on the ground, but standing is out of the question. His muscles are taffy pieces left on a hot stove. Gravity itself is too heavy. “Are you serious?”</p><p>Haru’s laugh is unfiltered cynicism. “You don’t have a choice anymore.”</p><p>Next to him, Makoto shifts his weight and winces. His condition is distracting and not allowing Sousuke access to the full gambit of how pissed off he should be by now. He’s gone from a little woozy on his feet to imminent collapse in the few moments since he stood. And, shortly after Sousuke observes this, he does.</p><p>He hadn’t noticed it, but as soon as Makoto gives out, a barely visible, transparent barrier around the immediate area wobbles and tears apart. As soon as it’s gone, whatever invisible titan that had been river dancing on Sousuke’s shoulders kindly steps off, and some strength returns. Enough to react and shift over to Makoto, damnable humanity response activated once more. The rest of his exhaustion is due to everything else.</p><p>But he doesn’t finish the movement, because Haru steps between them abruptly. Sousuke nearly collides with him, but recovers, finally putting his height to good use and making sure he demonstrates the full head he has over this snippy rabid demon thing.</p><p>“Go home.”</p><p>“You literally just said—”</p><p>“Go. If you say anything to anyone I will find you and I will eat you.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>With no cinematic build up this time, the nightmare mouth manifests in a snap and lunges through Haru for him, thrashing and snapping like a yard dog. Sousuke shouts a daisy chain of obscenities and leaps back until the monster reaches the end of its leash.</p><p>“It’s all right, Sousuke,” Makoto says, wheezing now. “We’ll see you soon. Please rest.” There is no accompanying space wobble or demonic echo, no hypnotic garbage going on. Only a plea.</p><p>Haru opts for ominous. “And cancel your plans tomorrow.”</p><p>The hell mouth stops straining for Sousuke. It inverts, goes outside in, and emerges on the other side of itself. A real show-off way of turning around.</p><p>It devours Makoto and Haru, surrounding them in revolving ribbons of void feeding into its center, and in the next instant, Sousuke is alone.</p><p>
  
  
  
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. he definitely wants that</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>now with some added flair. a surprise. </p>
<p>anyway it only goes off the rails after this so final comment and warning on all that if you're not an off the rails sort of person.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are hangovers, there are migraines, and then there is this.</p>
<p>Asked how he made it back to his bed and managed to sleep, Sousuke wouldn’t have an answer. He spent his first hour awake blissfully unaware anything had happened, lazily scrolling through various feeds on his phone. Sore and sleepier than usual sure, but nothing alarming. He spent the hour after that, however, showering in debilitating zoned out numbness after accidentally asking himself why he felt how he did, and where he had been last night. Some residual code section of those two’s mind control held on for dear life and he truly nearly forgot them like he’d been told to.</p>
<p>Too bad.</p>
<p>It’s been downhill from there, physically and mentally. An indescribable weakness has since taken Sousuke hostage. There is no explanation for it. He has stayed up for days before with no sleep, has been hospitalized for extreme fever, has worked multiple double shifts, sometimes back to back, and none of it compares to right now. The most he has done is lay flat out on his sofa for who knows how long. It hasn’t let up. It’s only gotten worse. Throbbing head. Chest pains. Not like a heart attack, but like the entire cage and contents is an exposed nerve bundle sitting out during a blizzard just beneath his skin, which is also tender.</p>
<p>The weather seal crack and subsequent latch and lock of the front door is loud enough to make him whimper. Sei is back from wherever he went, whenever that was.</p>
<p>“Christ Sousuke, you’re still workin on that single piece of white bread from lunch? It’s nearly four. I need to talk to you about something.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for your concern,” Sousuke hisses through clenched teeth. “Go away.”</p>
<p>The plate scrapes across the table where Sousuke set it earlier. Sei takes it away to the kitchen, a finicky bitch about crumbs. “Do you need an ambulance?” he calls back with the volume and intensity of one thousand screeching harpies. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“...I don’t know,” Sousuke answers on delay after the nausea wave passes. It’s half-true.</p>
<p>“You’ve never been this hungover.” Back in the living room and hammering railroad spikes into Sousuke’s temples. “You don’t ever drink enough to get hungover. Weren’t you getting dinner with someone last night? I don’t know whether this means it went well or went to shit.”</p>
<p>“Went to shit.”</p>
<p>“You really took it hard then. He must’ve been perfect aside from… what’s that one dealbreaker you have? Gacha game players?”</p>
<p>“Go away,” Sousuke repeats, begging now as he covers his eyes with his forearm to block out the hellfire of the lamp Sei just turned on. “I caaaaa-ooowwwwhat are are you doing?!”</p>
<p>Sei clicks his tongue and removes the back of his hand where he’s laid it over Sousuke’s forehead. “Nothing for now. But if you get feverish or pass out or something I’m dumping you off at the hospital. This is weird. We can talk about my thing later.”</p>
<p>Having said his terms, Sei honors Sousuke’s request. He clicks the lamp off and busies himself in the kitchen for a snack before retreating to his room. Beneath all of Sousuke’s misery is contrition. He was rude. They’ve been worse to each other in all their years as friends, but still. Sei must believe Sousuke is truly incapacitated, otherwise there would’ve been a fight, and all Sousuke can manage is irritation with his attempts to help. He’ll apologize later if he lives through this.</p>
<p>It is only after the sun has well set an hour and change later that there is any hint of relief for his afflictions. The corrosive pain in his body lets up and the headache retreats to a six from a nine. Sousuke wouldn’t be able to walk to his bed, but he can roll over and slap around the coffee table for the stale slice of bread he only belatedly remembers Sei took away already. Goddamnit.</p>
<p>New for his condition as the physical malady eases is a fresh, hip, and overwhelming <em>emptiness</em>. Someone should be here with him and the absence of anyone is increasingly distressing. The intensity is profound and makes little sense. Sousuke is notorious in his social circle (that is Sei’s social circle) for his reclusivity by choice. When he’s sick, he’s downright feral about being left alone. The thought of it right now is horrifying.</p>
<p>Sousuke sits up. He looks towards Sei’s closed door ready to call for him, but can’t do it. He instead imagines tackling himself into a pool to prevent it. Wrong. It’s wrong and repulsive on a visceral level, like carpet in a bathroom. Nevermind that Sei would laugh in his face were he to do it, but simply imagining him here does not abate the ache in his heart or reassure him in any way.</p>
<p>Preoccupied until now with the worst day of his life in recent memory, it occurs to him for the first time that those two hell creatures from last night did something to him. Not temporarily, like the sludge he thought he shook the last of that morning, but a permanent alteration that his body is now coping with. He checks his pulse. It’s there, so he’s not undead. He pinches the side of his wrist and that hurts, he punches the air and it moves at normal speed, so he’s not unconscious in an alien spaceship somewhere. He’s alive, responsive, and perfectly fine biologically. Yet he’s also gone very far away, and has been gone for a very long time, and he misses someone terribly and he is singularly becoming obsessed with going home.</p>
<p>The bar. Sousuke needs to go back to that bar and find out what they did. His heart quickens in response to the idea, he floods with warm euphoria. His body has been trying to tell him this all day and now responds like a nonverbal toddler who finally got through to their parents after screaming incoherently for hours that they want a fucking banana, not an apple, orange, or pear.</p>
<p>Sousuke paces quickly to his bedroom and dresses out of sad sweat pants and into day clothes, jeans as is customary and a black long sleeved crew. The commotion alerts Sei, who emerges from his room next door and hangs off the top of Sousuke’s door frame to quietly observe.</p>
<p>“...Better?” Sei finally asks. “Can we talk now?”</p>
<p>“No, sorry. I gotta go.”</p>
<p>“Where?” he balks in disbelief. “Get a meal in you first.”</p>
<p>“No.” He crosses the room for his wallet and keys. “I need to leave right now.”</p>
<p>Sei frowns and his voice drops an octave in concern. “Sou, you’re freaking me out. You’ve been acting high as a giraffe’s ass since that text. Did you take something?”</p>
<p>Sousuke sighs and stands still in front of him to address the situation with more respect. “No. I have not taken anything. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine, I promise.” He thinks. That’s a bold assumption right now. “I’ll be ba—”</p>
<p>A knock at the door interrupts and startles them. Sousuke shrugs when Sei questions him with a look. He also takes note that his aching is all but gone. His fervent, flashpoint obsession with leaving is less potent. He feels human. Better than that: he is his normal, curmudgeonly self.</p>
<p>Sei drops his arms from his door frame hang and goes to answer it. Sousuke resumes preparing to leave, but with less frenzy. He can afford some food too, now that his body is freed up to remind him he has not eaten or had anything to drink in some time.</p>
<p>He’s barely two steps out of room when he hears it, because their apartment is small.</p>
<p>“—if Sousuke is available?”</p>
<p>“Who’s asking?”</p>
<p>He’s sprinting to the door as if it isn’t a measly five strides away. Sei is the unfortunate recipient of the momentum, caught unaware and pushed to the side too hard to ignore it as normal. “What the—”</p>
<p>“Thank you Sei, got it, thank you.”</p>
<p>Sei grumbles about it, but retreats. He lingers, though.</p>
<p>“Makoto.” It sounds relieved and urgent; Sousuke doesn’t believe it comes from his mouth for a split second. His need to see Makoto is not rooted in relief. Second to this is the am-I-losing-it level of confusion to see him here at his home. “How…?”</p>
<p>Makoto holds a hand up in what must be a limp attempt at a wave. He looks much better than last Sousuke saw him crumpled in the street in a state of rapid physical degradation. Cleaned up and sporting a sweater over cropped chinos with loafers, all within that signature autumn palette. He’s quite put together, and looks neither like a demon nor a bartender.</p>
<p>“Can we talk? You have questions I didn’t get a chance to answer.”</p>
<p>He’s just so goddamn affable. Sousuke forgets he only met him less than a day ago, they may as well be something like polite acquaintances for how friendly the guy is off the bat. “Uh…” Sousuke looks back at Sei, who fakes being on his phone to eavesdrop from the couch. “This isn’t the best place. Maybe we can go somewhere else?”</p>
<p>“I can um…” He wiggles his fingers in front of himself. “He won’t hear us. Privacy would be better than somewhere public.”</p>
<p>It’s a disconcerting proposal. Too soon after all the wiggling directed at him. “Let’s uh, cool it with that. But sure, here’s fine. I have a room.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.” His smile is overly polite. It can’t be real.</p>
<p>Sousuke groans to himself and steps to the side in silent invitation. Makoto doesn’t step through, fake smile going stale and eventually, nervous. “Uh… you gonna come in?”</p>
<p>“Can you invite me, please?”</p>
<p>“Y… yeah. That’s the point.”</p>
<p>“Ah. I mean. Explicitly.”</p>
<p>An awkward silence falls between them, bolstered by the evening’s chill. Sei’s watching, Sousuke needs to do something but he truly does not understand the request. “Like… give you… spoken permission?”</p>
<p>“That, yes. Please.”</p>
<p>“You can, uh, enter.”</p>
<p>He still doesn’t move. In his eyes is mortification, his pressed lips clearly holding back a scream.</p>
<p>“What now?”</p>
<p>He shuffles his weight. “Do you own this place?”</p>
<p>“...I rent.”</p>
<p>“From him?” Eyes flicker to Sei. “You’re on the lease?”</p>
<p>When Sousuke checks, Sei is not on his phone anymore, only staring and straining to hear the low conversation. “He isn’t my <em>landlord, </em>it's his lease<em>. </em>I give him money to stay here. There’s a difference, okay?”</p>
<p>“Of course there is.”</p>
<p>When he says nothing else, Sousuke begrudgingly catches his drift. “<em>He</em> needs to invite you in?”</p>
<p>“Please.”</p>
<p>“Oh my god.” Sousuke is insulted for some reason. “I live here.” Makoto half-shrugs. “Fine. Sei,” he calls over his shoulder, “mind if I have company?”</p>
<p>The snark in his answer is something to behold. “Leave your door open, you wiley teens. Don’t forget you have school tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Makoto shakes his head. Not good enough.</p>
<p>Sousuke’s soul struggles against its confines. This is torture. “He can come in, right? You’re good with that? If he comes inside?”</p>
<p>“What th— yes? What the hell kind of stupid question is that?”</p>
<p>“He’s a little shy.” Makoto balks. “Think you could reassure him?”</p>
<p>“This is really weird, Sousuke!”</p>
<p>“Humor us, Sei!”</p>
<p>Sei scowls and throws his hands up. “Yes! God. Whatever.” His voice shifts from gravelly to high falutin nasal. “Do come in, <em>sir</em>.”</p>
<p>That does it. Hurried, Makoto steps over the threshold and inclines his head towards Sei. “Thank you very much. It’s a bit of a… thing I can’t help, unfortunately.”</p>
<p>“We all got ‘em,” Sei replies, not convinced in the slightest. “Things we can’t help... who are you again?”</p>
<p>On second thought, those demon powers of persuasion would be useful here to get Sei to lose interest. But brazen rudeness will work just as well. “Just a friend,” Sousuke answers, and shuffles Makoto forward towards the bedroom. “Don’t interrupt.” He knows how much relentless shit Sei could rain down on his head over how bad this all looks and sounds, but it’s a problem for future Sousuke.</p>
<p>As soon as Sousuke closes the bedroom door behind them, he feels a familiar wobble. “Hey now.”</p>
<p>“It’s just to keep our conversation contained,” Makoto reassures. He clears his throat. Against Sousuke’s minimalist room of sharp angles, straight lines, and clean, solid colors, Makoto’s warm tones, busy accent prints, and sloping, curved outline is out of place. “Right. So let me get into it. My name is Makoto Tachibana. I’m, well… a vampire.”</p>
<p>Sousuke stares as if he is present but a part of him has left this mortal plane for good, and his mind goes blank and blue screens as it adjusts to the loss and reboots. Makoto allows it for as long as it takes to find words again. “Come again?”</p>
<p>“Vampire. That’s the best term humans have. It’s a bit silly but I never came up with anything better.”</p>
<p>“Like with the blood eating. The garlic thing.” It clicks. “You needed to be invited inside.” Of course only hell itself would validate landlords.</p>
<p>Makoto nods. “More or less. The garlic thing is a myth. Actually a lot of things are myths. Humans are unreliable storytellers. Anyway. You, Sousuke, are...” This part he struggles with for some time to ‘get right into’. “You’re…”</p>
<p>“Not a vampire. I’m alive, I have checked many, many times since yesterday.” He’s thankful for the sound barrier now.</p>
<p>“Yes you are. You’re definitely alive. And you’re my… familiar.” He winces away from the revelation. It’s the term or concept or both that he clearly hates. Sousuke sure does hate both immediately. “You accidentally became my familiar.”</p>
<p>What does Sousuke know about familiars? That they’re dogs sometimes? That’s about it. It’s a bit of a European thing if he recalls. European things aren’t really his thing in general, aside from a mutual appreciation for the simple carbohydrate dressed up in butter.</p>
<p>“So like a dog.”</p>
<p>“What? No.” Makoto’s brow creases. “I didn’t say witch, I said vampire.”</p>
<p>“Oh, excuse me, how thoughtless,” Sousuke deadpans. “How could I confuse such common very real and normal demonic entities?</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Makoto sighs. “This is difficult for me.”</p>
<p>Sousuke can’t help himself: “Cry me a river.”</p>
<p>Makoto recoils. “Right. This must be a bit much.”</p>
<p>“So what does it mean since you’re obviously stalling?” Impatience spikes his tone.</p>
<p>“You should sit down for this?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“Well all right.” He purses his lips over something sour. “...It means you’re soul bound to me. You’re in service of. It’s a sort of bind that is an extension of my will and you are its avatar.”</p>
<p>It hangs in the air like an unmet high-five. Sousuke nods. “I’ll sit.” He takes up the edge of his bed as Makoto is standing by his desk and he wouldn’t want to make his demonic guest uncomfortable as he explains the terms and conditions of being bound to a vampire. “Where do I opt out?”</p>
<p>“You can’t.”</p>
<p>“Then release me.”</p>
<p>“I can’t.”</p>
<p>A dark and sardonic laugh rumbles in Sousuke’s chest. “I’m not much of a <em>servant</em>, Makoto.”</p>
<p>“And I’m not much of a master.” He bites his lip. Sousuke squints in search of fangs, given the revelation. He spots none. “But it isn’t something I had a say in. It’s a dark magic I didn’t make that works when it is activated.”</p>
<p>“Then why did it activate?”</p>
<p>Makoto has been pleasant if not deferential up to this point. But it’s here his mood shifts starkly, from the conflicting nature of a light rain in sunlight to dark skies and static air. He works his mouth around at least four different answers, then settles on not answering at all. “Why did you do that? I can’t understand it.”</p>
<p>Not helpful, but Makoto’s onset distress has Sousuke thinking better of sarcasm. If he is a vampire— and for all of his playing along here, Sousuke is not sold— then the last thing he wants to do is piss him off. So he replays the night again in his head. The only thing Sousuke did of his own free will last night was ditch his date and shove Makoto out of the way of the truck and Makoto is likely only referring to the latter event. “You were gonna die.”</p>
<p>“I can’t die!”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know that at the time!”</p>
<p>“But that’s worse!”</p>
<p>Sousuke can hardly speak without an incredulous sputter. “Wh- I- Was I supposed to watch what I thought was another living person explode like a- like a- fucking party popper?!”</p>
<p>“You weren’t supposed to selflessly <em>sacrifice</em> yourself for a dangerous stranger!”</p>
<p>“You were actively advocating against your little goth buddy for my catch and release! I wanted you alive for my sake!”</p>
<p>Makoto finally looks away, jaw flexed and grinding over more words unsaid. “You shouldn’t have done it.”</p>
<p>“Well I did.” Sousuke throws his hands up. “You’re fucking welcome, by the way. No good deed goes unpunished, does it?!”</p>
<p>“No, because now we’re stuck together.” When he looks up again, he’s furious, but it’s not directed at Sousuke. “You proved to hell that you would die for me unconditionally. That’s the most basic loyalty requirement of a familiar. I didn’t have one already. So you were chosen for me, hell reversed your certain death in exchange for your servitude, and now we’re stuck together.”</p>
<p>The absolute gall of hell, apparently. Presumptuous, on top of its reputation for eternal torment. “What the fuck? Why didn’t hell ask me first?! I would’ve chosen death!”</p>
<p>“Me too!” Makoto’s eyes blow wide. “That came out wrong. I mean. I don’t want anyone forced into servitude. I didn’t have a familiar for a reason. I never have and I have always been careful not to get myself into a situation where I could accidentally get one and I was doing a pretty good job of that until you!”</p>
<p>Inadvertently blaming Sousuke for his own soul enslavement is certainly a choice. “Maybe don’t stand in front of oncoming traffic then? That’s a specifically inviting situation for selfless sacrifice, don’t you think?!”</p>
<p>He’s so caught up in being right that he only now begins to question why he believes anything coming out of this guy’s mouth (an evergreen issue in all of Sousuke’s failed relationships, to be fair). Fucking vampires? Seriously? Vant to blah-blah-blahd cape wearing bat fuckers? The multi-dimensional demon walker theory from last night is both way cooler and way more believable. This is a downgrade. This is bullshit.</p>
<p>“Augh!” Makoto yells in tandem with Sousuke’s internal decision to be Over It, chin to ceiling. He jabs the heels of his palms to tightly closed eyes, rubs, and lets out a long, calming breath before attempting to speak again. “Okay. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is finding a way to make it work.”</p>
<p>Sousuke scoffs. “Speak for yourself. You’re out of your mind. I’m not doing anything because there is no way you’re sane.”</p>
<p>“So everything you’ve been through in the last day, that you’re experiencing right now, is a figment of your imagination? None of that happened last night?” Makoto presses. “That would make you the delusional one, of the two of us.”</p>
<p>“I don’t care about what you think.” It sounds as lame and unconvinced as he wishes it didn’t. That he didn’t laugh in Makoto’s face and shove him right back out the door as soon as he said the word <em>vampire</em> is a damning indictment of where his subconscious stands on the matter. “Real or not, I’m not your fucking hell-bound will-servant. So let’s agree to pretend it never happened, go back to our lives, and we can forge the time sheets we turn into hell, all right? I won’t tell if you won’t.”</p>
<p>Makoto falls quiet. He’s reassessing his approach, by the way his gaze searches the ground. He finds his new angle somewhere near Sousuke’s floor lamp. “How were you feeling before I got here, Sousuke?”</p>
<p>He sits up subconsciously, newly nervous and exposed. “I was fine.”</p>
<p>“No you weren’t. Because I wasn’t.”</p>
<p>Sousuke has a hard time staying rowdy with a person who refuses to engage his gruff as Makoto has chosen to pivot from. His natural soft-spoken de-escalation brings Sousuke down a peg, too. “What of it?”</p>
<p>“We have to be near each other now. All the time. Unless you’re on an errand acting out my will, you have to be near me or you’ll… you’ll feel like that.”</p>
<p>Sousuke absently rubs a hand over his heart. The longing. The unbearable, painful emptiness. A bitter bile collects in the back of his throat. It’s a betrayal by his own mind and body. He is a weapon against himself. “That’s… evil.”</p>
<p>Makoto doesn’t deny it. “It preys on a person’s strongest feelings and desires to keep them obedient. In this case, no one wants to be truly lonely. It will make you feel like you are. Brute force can be overcome. Heartbreak cannot. You’ll need to be close, or else you’ll waste away, basically. I feel it too. It can happen to me, too, to keep me from abandoning you. We’ll always be drawn back together as long as we’re bound. It’s not consensual, believe me it isn’t. It’s maddening. It’s ugly and it’s horrible.” He spits this last pitching bit; it’s poison.</p>
<p>It was a mistake not to eat something. Sousuke crosses his arms across his chest and caves inward. It’s a nightmare, worse than everything else that’s happened. It’s so specific, and Makoto is so remorseful and haunted to tell him about it, that he knows in his gut this isn’t a lie. “How do we break it?”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Sousuke.”</p>
<p>“What if I…” He trails, regretful of the thought now that it has form.</p>
<p>Finally, Makoto leans against the desk, looking just as worn out as Sousuke feels. “What, stab me in the heart? Drown me in holy water? You can’t kill me. If you kill me, you’ll die too. I can’t just release you either. It’s not my curse to release. It’s a condition of my own curse.”</p>
<p>The walls of his bedroom compress around him. “There has to be a way to appease the sentence or whatever. There’s always a way out of these things in the movies.”</p>
<p>“There is… sort of. But you wouldn’t survive fulfillment, either. Regardless, I refuse to fulfill it.”</p>
<p>“Fulfill it!” Sousuke snaps. “I don’t want this! My whole life? Chained to <em>you</em>?”</p>
<p>“I won’t do it,” is all he replies. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“What kind of shitty vampire are you? Isn’t murder your gig?”</p>
<p>But he isn’t serious about wanting to die, he’s only terrified of the thought of living with this. Dying is panic-inducing when there is space to contemplate it and no split second decisions to be made, and Makoto must feel no bite behind his bark. His lack of alarm towards Sousuke’s hysterics implies he’s been through these stages of grief for himself already.</p>
<p>“I can’t.” Makoto half-smiles. “I actually am a shitty vampire.”</p>
<p>Sousuke swallows a dry lump. It’s surreal, but his mounting mourning is not. “I have a life. I have… I have fr- I have a friend.” Ouch. “There’s my job. I have family… member.” Ouch again. “I still want…” Heat rises up his neck and face. “I’m not done. I still have shit I want to do. I can’t just be near you all the time.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Here, Makoto’s voice breaks up. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to do my best. I’m just as bound as you are. But I can try within my limits to let you have a normal life.”</p>
<p>Just as bound? Sousuke doesn’t know where to take that statement. There’s an entire Pandora’s box here of information about curses from hell that is unwise to break open in his current state. Right now it doesn’t particularly matter either, because if they can find a way to work around this, he won’t need to know every single rule of Makoto’s engagement, only his own.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Sousuke mutters. He scratches at the back of his head, fingers and palm moving up into his hair and over the top to meet his other hand where he then holds his face because no one needs to see him all limp and helpless. “<em>Fuck</em>.”</p>
<p>“That was also my sentiment last night.” Makoto angles for a lighter touch. “I’d gotten away with this for five-hundred-something years before you showed up.”</p>
<p>He looks through a gap in his fingers. “You mean to tell me you’ve never reached your awesome vampiric potential and enslaved a hapless, feckless mortal against their will on purpose to stand in line at the bank for you? How noble.”</p>
<p>“Not once.”</p>
<p>“And you can’t… eat people?”</p>
<p>He’s quiet long enough that Sousuke unmasks himself for a better view of Makoto’s real-time editorial process. “I don’t feed on humans,” Makoto clarifies.</p>
<p>“But you <em>can</em>.”</p>
<p>“I choose not to.” Haru’s snapping hell monster comes to mind. “Haru doesn’t either.”</p>
<p>He groans. “Oh, you can read my thoughts now too? That’s fucking great.”</p>
<p>“I can’t,” Makoto swiftly denies. “But I can sense feelings that would imply you’re in danger. Pain, fear, panic. It’s just like a… hell-issued GPS?”</p>
<p>“Ah. That’s how you found me.”</p>
<p>Makoto nods. “And Haru’s… pet… is rightfully terrifying; of course you would remember that fear and doubt me if I say he doesn’t kill people.” He pauses. “Well. Aside from when he tried to, because you weren’t going to forget what you saw. He’s very protective and that’s never happened before. He panicked.”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t I forget, anyway?”</p>
<p>Makoto holds his hands up, empty for an answer. “I really don’t know. I’m not as strong as I used to be, certainly. Your will might be more resilient than the average person’s. Anything, really. It’s not an infallible ability. Hell is, by construct, imperfect. So is its magic.”</p>
<p>There is a tiny pebble of hope in that statement Sousuke stores away. Nothing is perfect, not even the curses. He could wallow in despair and refuse to cooperate, inevitably forced by a treacherous heart to come crawling back in misery with no new ideas on how to break the binding.</p>
<p>Or he could just grit his teeth, accept his lot one piece at time, and work with this perfectly sensible, unfortunately friendly, five-hundred-something year old shitty vampire until he finds a non-lethal way out without all that pain and suffering in the interim.</p>
<p>He believes for a moment he does have an above-average resilient will. He must believe it; sounds like he’ll need it. “Fine. Let’s make it work.”</p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>thock. thock. thock. thock.</em>
</p>
<p>Half. Quarter. Dice. Sweep.</p>
<p>
  <em>thock. thock. thock. thock.</em>
</p>
<p>Half. Stop it. Quarter. Dice. Sweep.</p>
<p>
  <em>thock. thock. thock. thock.</em>
</p>
<p>Half. Quarter. Dice. Don’t think about it. Sweep.</p>
<p>
  <em>thock. thock. thock. thock.</em>
</p>
<p>Half. Quarter. Life is meaningless now. Dice. Sweep.</p>
<p>
  <em>thock. th—</em>
</p>
<p>A wedge of blood-stained zucchini comes into focus. “Ah shit.”</p>
<p>Sousuke lays the side of his hand flat on the cutting board and scoots the half-chopped vegetable into the bin at the end of the prep table. His blood smears down the surface in its wake. He removes and discards the latex glove on that hand, now that it too is soiled. He lifts the board and pivots at the waist and dumps it into the sink, leaving yet more blood behind where he grabbed it. There’s blood on the faucet handle. When he runs the cut side of his index finger under the tap, the blood turns the trickle red. When the water hits the bottom of the basin, it deflects off the scoop of a tablespoon, sending diluted biohazard splattering up the stainless steel walls. It’s always the littlest cuts that bleed the most, in his experience.</p>
<p>“Again?”</p>
<p>There is no hope his finger will stop bleeding any time soon, so he abandons the task. One-handed, Sousuke pops the faucet nozzle to spray and washes down the splatter, turns the water off, and twists the offending digit in a makeshift paper towel dressing until he can get to the first-aid box.</p>
<p>“Sousuke?”</p>
<p>The stinging sets in, belated, as Sousuke crosses the kitchen to the box. Pain is traceable now, right? Does Makoto get a funny little feeling in his head? Does he experience a tingling sensation on his hand? Sousuke looks warily towards the doors leading out of the kitchen. Can he smell the blood?</p>
<p>“Helloooo?”</p>
<p>Quickly, while the wound is dried out from the dressing, Sousuke pops open the wall-mounted box and fishes out a bandaid from an open container. He manages the two sides of the packaging apart with his index finger pointing away, then adheres the strip and trashes the tabs and paper outer. Now he’ll need two stifling gloves to work and he’s barely halfway through dinner prep.</p>
<p>A jostle at his shoulders takes him by surprise and the world spins. On the other side, Kazuma inspects him up close and keeps his hands clamped down on his shoulders. “Oh. Hey.”</p>
<p>Kazuma gives him a light shake. “Welcome back. Cut yourself again? What’s going on with you?”</p>
<p>Sousuke breaks out of his cousin’s hold and makes for the disinfectant materials. Spray bottle and clean rag in hand, for the second time that afternoon, he begins to disinfect the metal prep top. “Eh y’know. Tired. Just an off day.”</p>
<p>Kazuma follows him. “You haven’t cut yourself in years. You’re flawless with a knife.”</p>
<p>There’s no way Sousuke finishes his work in time for the dinner rush. He’ll be playing catch up all night. Chatter with Kazuma won’t help. “Evidently, I’m not.”</p>
<p>He scrubs well beyond the affected area; Kazuma will skin him if he doesn’t. Still, it isn’t good enough; Kazuma silently lifts away the bowl of non-contaminated vegetables Sousuke was adding to before butchering his hand. “I can’t have this, Sou.”</p>
<p>Sousuke bites down a kneejerk impulse to snark back. Normally, being the invisible backbone of the restaurant is a good gig for Sousuke. He’s efficient, has a good sense for how much food needs to be prepped for their various specials and staple menu combinations, and Kazuma can trust him to do his work without hovering over him. Makes it tense when he can’t do his job well, for whatever reason, which is rare. Kazuma relies on Sousuke’s confidence and perfectionism and pressures him accordingly when it isn’t up to snuff.</p>
<p>Finished with the prep top, he casts Kazuma an apologetic look as sincere as his naturally bored face will allow for. “I know. I haven’t been feeling myself lately.”</p>
<p>Kazuma sets the bowl back to its place. “Well I only have you in the kitchen for now. Isuzu can’t get here any sooner.”</p>
<p>Translation: too bad, get it together. “Right. Won’t happen again.”</p>
<p>Kazuma isn’t convinced it won’t. Can’t blame him. But he has no choice; to keep the restaurant afloat, Kazuma has his staff pulling double roles when they can. Sousuke works prep and line when he’s here, and it’ll be another hour until the rest of the staff shows up to help out. He’s on his own.</p>
<p>“Can’t afford it, Sousuke.” With those warm parting words, Kazuma makes his exit. Sousuke misses the fun and encouraging Kazuma from years past. The slow death of Hiyosi has been especially hard on him, given it was his father’s restaurant before it was his. There is no recovering from two solid pages of three-star reviews all containing the words “nostalgic”, “normal”, and “reasonable” in today’s climate demanding nothing short of a transcendental, photographic dining experience in small, passover tourist towns.</p>
<p>The cutting board will need a run through the sanitizer, as well as the knife alongside the rest of the day’s dishes. Later. For now he retrieves a clean cutting board, two new gloves, the third-best knife in the kitchen, and resumes his work. He slows down considerably, trust in his ability somewhat shaken. But he gets through the rest of it without more bloodshed and, after wrangling what’s left of his non-ruptured brain cells under a net to keep them all from floating away into the vampire servant stratosphere, manages to focus long enough to limp along the line cooking for the early bird diners until the evening shift’s reinforcements.</p>
<p>In all, when reinforcements arrive, he’s been working four solid hours prepping, stocking, and cooking with another few hours yet to go. It isn’t so bad, he dares to think. He started off strong if one omits the knife slippage and now he’s dragging ass as he expected he might, feeling color drain from his surroundings, becoming sluggish the less he cares about the product. But still functional. They can be apart. Makoto may’ve oversold the proximity compulsion. Sure it would be better if Makoto were here. At the same time, he isn’t pinned to his couch in emotional agony now that he knows what to expect and how to compartmentalize which are <em>his</em> feelings and which feelings are essentially foreign parasites trying to hijack his body.</p>
<p>The problem is, <em>his</em> feelings are dark. Hopeless. To be avoided, if he wants to keep his fingers, but can’t be ignored forever. Such feelings compel him to seek out company. Such feelings bring him back to needing someone here. Round it goes. His mind, something he’s worked hard to make a reliable refuge, is a hostile place he is now resentful of. No one working at the restaurant has time for his personal struggles.</p>
<p>“I gotta get some fuckin’ friends,” he smothers between the clack and clang of silverware.</p>
<p>His tentatively hopeful, fledgling theory that his indentured life might be manageable if he can learn to live with deliberately not having feelings whenever he needs to do something important is quickly smothered. It begins as a fuzzy tingle deep down, a grace period of a few seconds alerting him that anything is off, before it’s on his face and rubberizing his joints. The kitchen falls away. He’s standing in the middle of a parched wasteland, abandoned. He’s screaming for help with a voice that doesn’t produce more than a hoarse whisper. There are figures on the horizon. They point at him. But they’re not who Sousuke is looking for. Where did he go? Why did he leave?</p>
<p>“Uh… Sousuke?”</p>
<p>“Where did you go?!”</p>
<p>But it’s Isuzu. She’s tense and small in the grip of his shadow, flooding Sousuke with guilt as he fights with the demon in his head for a fucking grip on reality. She is not a woman easily cowed and he has blatantly frightened her. Separating them is a shattered ceramic plate. He assumes he dropped it, and hopes it happened before she came in.</p>
<p>“I heard the plate…” She frowns, but recovers from her shock and ties off her apron with the sort of resolve that suggests she knows she’s in charge tonight. “Sei mentioned you haven’t been feeling well.”</p>
<p>“I…”</p>
<p>Kazuma throws the swinging door open so fast it slams against the kitchen wall and rebounds. “What the hell?” Sousuke is ten again and Kazuma has caught him taking Kazuma’s painstakingly assembled scale model Gundam scenes apart. He only briefly takes in the scene before moving to cut off Sousuke and retrieve the broom and dustpan himself. Broken equipment and yelling are understandably the last straw, even if the schedule doesn’t allow for a last straw. “Sousuke,” he sighs. “We got night crew. Why don’t you go home?”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Sousuke says to them both. “I got it. I’m fine. Just—”</p>
<p>Kazuma doesn’t waste the energy to look up at him as he sweeps around his feet. “Go home, Sousuke.”</p>
<p>He nods to himself and breathes through his rising temperature. Eyes averted, pressure building in his throat, he hangs up his apron and takes a right immediately outside of the kitchen for the back office before he makes anything worse. There, he retrieves his cross bag and coat, and pitches his gloves. Keeping to the perimeter of the dining room, Sousuke slinks out the entrance and into the late, golden afternoon.</p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Why go home? The agreement struck was that Sousuke go to The Last Drop after his shift for a few hours. Well, it’s after his shift. If he goes home, <em>away</em> from his promised destination, he already knows he’ll suffer for it. His head aches now even weighing it as an option. The mere act of thinking of the bar, however, rewards him with… what? Glow? <em>Warmth</em>? It’s so repulsive in the part of the mind that is not cursed that Sousuke begins walking home out of spite.</p>
<p>He makes it a block before that fuzzy tingle returns.</p>
<p>The stop and about face is abrupt and angry and out of place, given the looks it garners from the handful of people in the area who have watched him pivot back and forth no fewer than three times now while muttering to himself.</p>
<p>He’s spiralling. He knows this because he stops at fast-casual Bos, the hip and flashy, forbidden existential enemy of Hiyosi, on the way for their artery clogging half-pound fully dressed curry burger, large Coke, and a double order of seasoned fries. The paper bag he picks up at the take-out window is heavy enough to be wielded as a weapon.</p>
<p>Because nothing is going his way, probably for the rest of his life, The Last Drop is just far enough from Hiyosi that by the time he gets there, the autumn chill has definitely turned his food lukewarm at best, promising a congealed mess of grease and soggy starches. The haunting, alluring acoustic guitar from the other night is nowhere to be heard and the medieval dungeon chic of it all is not what he thought he saw then, either. It’s old and dark still, but its street-facing entrance is offensively boring and its interior looks like, well, a bar. There are more than two other self-pitying patrons this time, as many as six, and while it’s all spaced out as Sousuke remembers it, he can at least see them all.</p>
<p>In pale performance to its demonic, musical co-resident, there’s a jukebox pumping out the audio quality equivalent of a thrice-saved jpeg image.</p>
<p>Fuck all about that though. The moment he steps over the threshold is nothing short of a million little fireworks of treacherous euphoria bursting in the gaps between his cells. Good, obedient servant human, bending to his curse. It’s so intense he pauses to force his elated sighs back into himself. Then, newly angry at himself for it, continues in.</p>
<p><em>—far away from you my baby<br/></em> <em>whisper a little prayer for me my baby—</em></p>
<p>Sousuke throws his bag of food ahead of him onto the bar, near where Makoto is faced away popping a liquor spout into a new bottle of rum. The dense slap of fat-saturated paper bag on wood is both an announcement of his arrival and a weathervane for his mood.</p>
<p><em>—because it's hard for me my baby<br/></em> <em>and the darkest hour is just before dawn—</em></p>
<p>There’s disgust on the scrunch of Makoto’s nose established long before he turns around. He stares at the bag, leaning away from it, and bounces his gaze between it and Sousuke.</p>
<p>“I <em>hate</em> that I’m happy to see you.”</p>
<p>“What <em>is </em>that?”</p>
<p>“Leave me alone.” Sousuke sets his drink down, takes up the barstool, and unfurls the tight fold containing his pity party. The burger box is in a sad structural state. As soon as Makoto sees it, he retrieves a bar towel from behind the counter and places it nearby. Sousuke flips the top of the burger box open and dumps a clump of fries into the upper portion. It’s not piping hot, whatever. Now that it’s here, and he’s starving, he’s exci—</p>
<p>Sousuke hunches forward and inspects the left side of the burger. He lifts the top bun to confirm his suspicions. There. Beneath the curry sauce. “God. Dammit.”</p>
<p><em>—whisper a little prayer for me my baby<br/></em> <em>and tell all the stars above—</em></p>
<p>“What’s the matter?” Makoto asks. There is a simultaneous wobble in the air indicating their interactions are now shrouded to the other patrons.</p>
<p>“This fucking music,” Sousuke snaps. “The fuck is this an American diner in 1965?”</p>
<p>Makoto skips a polite frown and briefly, but disapprovingly, presses his lips. “All right then.”</p>
<p>The rebound of Sousuke’s shitty response bouncing off Makoto’s slate and guarded expression knocks him down a notch. “Sorry,” he groans. “Can’t eat cheese. Asked for no cheese. Got cheese. Melted into the whole thing. Can’t eat any of it now. I’m hungry.”</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>“That’s frustrating,” Makoto offers sincerely. “Even the fries?”</p>
<p>He spins the box around. “It’ll have to do. Assuming you don’t keep food here.”</p>
<p>Makoto shrugs apologetically. “We can’t eat any food if it makes you feel better.”</p>
<p>“Know what?” Sousuke mashes over a mouthful of potato, “Sorta does.”</p>
<p>That exchange seems to return them to a baseline, mutual, low grade resentfulness. Makoto busies himself with second or third rounds and a sweep for empty glasses while Sousuke makes short work of half the fries going for two or three at a time.</p>
<p><em>—this is dedicated<br/></em> <em>this is dedicated—</em></p>
<p>Before he dumps the second order into the top half of the box, he pauses to observe Makoto working, generating questions he should not care about to the forefront of his consciousness.</p>
<p>The “ignore all the vampire shit and worry about yourself” approach is not panning out. Who could blame him? Humans are curious creatures and hell curses aren’t supposed to be real.</p>
<p>Twilight spills in through the semi-opaque shade covering the bar’s only window. Makoto is unbothered by it, crossing in front of it as he works. Is that technically sunlight? Shouldn’t it burn him? Where is Haru? How do they feed if not on humans nor human food? These are not the vampires from the stories. Makoto is passably mortal and human. Ignoring the hypnotic abilities, he’s a boring guy with minimal bombast whose dating profile Sousuke would be put to sleep by.</p>
<p>♥ walks, sunsets, music, fall, staying in, dogs :)<br/>× not looking for anything serious<br/>♫ i’m honest, and a little bit of trouble<br/>× if you’re mean, don’t match<br/>☮ born in the wrong generation ☮</p>
<p>It would be funnier if he couldn’t envision it so easily, mind readily able to supply from experience.</p>
<p>Makoto finishes his rounds and returns to the bar, but doesn’t engage Sousuke further. That’s the deal. Sousuke and Makoto can go about their normal days as best they can so long as they’re relatively close, and when he isn’t busy, he should be at the bar so they both get a mental break. Doesn’t mean they need to talk, they also agreed. A flimsy plan, but something to start with to test the limits… limits that are more constrictive than even their most conservative estimate predicted.</p>
<p>“You haven’t asked why I’m here so early.”</p>
<p>Makoto doesn’t look up from his meticulous tidying. “Because I already know why.”</p>
<p>“Thought you couldn’t read my mind.” The second order of fries hits the box lid.</p>
<p>There’s a draw on Makot’s brow and a brief pause in his ministrations. “I thought we weren’t talking about what we didn’t need to know.”</p>
<p>The fries are too far cold now. The texture is all wrong. Worse, the soda is flat. “I think I need to know if you can read my mind.”</p>
<p>“I cannot read your mind.”</p>
<p>“Then how would you know why I’m here early?”</p>
<p>Makoto stops his tasks altogether, leans forward on the bar at an angle with his arms outstretched to brace, and regards Sousuke head on. Impossibly unreadable and every emotion at once, like a hologram card that changes its image depending on the angle it’s viewed from. “It’s my fault you had a slip.”</p>
<p>“A what?”</p>
<p>“You had an episode where you were… compromised, didn’t you? I felt it.”</p>
<p>Dropping the plate and having a weird vision and screaming at his colleague probably counts as compromised. “I was asked to go home early. You did that?”</p>
<p>“When I agreed to our arrangement, I stipulated you spend some time around me because when you are not here I have to consciously think about where I want you to be. If I don’t, where you are of your own volition is not an extension of my will. We can be grateful that hell allows you to sleep without waking you, at least. A servant’s curse would require you to be healthy to perform your job and so it does not interfere. You can’t plot against me in your sleep. When you’re awake and trying to do your own thing, however....”</p>
<p>“The cursed shock collar zaps me and pushes me back if I’m somewhere you don’t know about or aren’t thinking about.”</p>
<p>“Right. I was doing my best. But it’s exhausting, frankly, to try and make your will my own. I slipped. Got distracted with a phone call ordering supplies. My will then was that I was going to need help unpacking it when it arrived. That’s all it took. Then I felt your agony and knew you’d be forced to come to me because I can’t just pick up where I left off there. It’s a spinning top with a wobble you can’t correct unless you stop it and spin it again. I need you to spend some time nearby so I can take a break from thinking about where you are and work on my own day.”</p>
<p>The implications of what he’s saying are immediately bleak. “Wait. You only agreed to this separate lives thing because you thought you could focus on me for hours upon hours with no distraction or interruption? And how shitty I felt even before that slip was you doing your <em>best?</em>”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say this would be perfect. In fact I said it would be difficult.”</p>
<p>“Difficult?” Sousuke laughs. “This is literally impossible, Makoto.” He holds up his bandaged hands. “Just trying not to think about any of this or feel the impending doom trying to beat down the door for being away from you had me nearly cutting my fingers off. My cousin will be forced to fire me if I can’t work.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s jaw sets hard and his bright eyes dull. He had to have known it would be impossible, he’s not new to this like Sousuke is. “I wanted to try. For both our sakes.”</p>
<p>But it’s not going to work because they are applying mortal solutions to immortal problems. Tangible concepts up against intangible magic. Quantifying this extra-reality situation into a bullet pointed action plan is not possible. Finding the loophole in a soul bond to render it inert is not the same as lawyering a law on the books. <em>Sousuke is Makoto’s familiar</em>. That is the only arrangement, interpretation, and execution that will satisfy the curse.</p>
<p>And still, he doesn’t accept it. “I can’t lose my job. I can’t let my family down and it’s the only money I have coming in.”</p>
<p>Makoto shakes his head. “This bar is the only thing I have.”</p>
<p>“Change your business hours,” Sousuke bargains. “I’ll get my shift changed. You come with me during the day. I’ll stay here at night. You walk me home and put me to bed like a good pet.”</p>
<p>This earns him a full-bodied laugh that would be pleasantly jolly if it weren’t so hysterical and sinister given the context. “Do you hear yourself, Sousuke?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I sound fucking desperate.” He closes the burger box and entombs the waste of food within it, then dumps it back into the bag. Makoto clears it immediately, holding it between a pinch at a distance and disappearing it behind the bar. “That’s because I am. The plan failed on the first day and you obviously knew it would.”</p>
<p>“What do you want me to say?” Makoto sighs. “I don’t want you as a familiar just as much as you don’t want to be one. It’s obvious, however, that negotiating shared custody of our mutual destiny won’t work. Vampires do not negotiate with their familiars.” He looks out into the bar over Sousuke’s shoulder, despondent. “They tell them.”</p>
<p>Makoto looks like he’d rather fall heart-first onto a wooden stake than “tell him” to do anything and Sousuke doesn’t want to manifest it into being by bringing it up. It’s an impasse.</p>
<p>“I’ll take a few days off,” Sousuke says in his ongoing attempt to strike a deal with the devil, who must be listening in on this and having a good time. “I can hang around here and buy us some time for a better idea.”</p>
<p>Makoto chooses to humor him. “Then what?”</p>
<p>Sousuke glares at him. “You aren’t allowed to ask me for guidance on this one. Unless you have a better idea to buy us time, that’s mine.”</p>
<p>The jukebox fell into the background at some point, but Sousuke notices in the ensuing silence that it’s no longer playing anything, and the bar is quiet. Day patrons have dwindled. They require a suspiciously lax level of attention, in that Makoto didn’t tend to anyone much at all. More hypno shit, probably. Sousuke’s convictions on this ethical front have eroded to nothing.</p>
<p>“Haru is not going to like it,” Makoto finally says.</p>
<p>“Why should he be excluded from our misery? This is really his fault.”</p>
<p>Twilight went to dusk some minutes back, gently pulling the light out with it. What floods the bar now is not that gentle sway. It is a hard shadow stretching across a field. It transforms the bar, warping its edges and curves as it passes over, until the establishment better resembles the dungeon Sousuke expected originally.</p>
<p>Haru sweeps in along with it, dingy nondescript band tee and shredded jeans dampening the intimidating effect he may have been going for. Sousuke does not believe in such insulting coincidences; Haru clearly drags night around with him. It’s a missed opportunity that he does not seem concerned with doing so in style. “What’s my fault?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Makoto dismisses.</p>
<p>“This entire situation,” Sousuke accuses concurrently. He lobs that at his former almost-murderer with chaotic abandon knowing Haru won’t kill him now. What a rush.</p>
<p>Haru levels him a look as he makes his way behind the bar and stands next to Makoto. He sets down a box that clinks and unloads bottles of red wine, two at a time, onto the honeycomb wine rack next to the liquor shelves. “Let yourself be killed next time then.”</p>
<p>“Haru,” Makoto chastises. He looks to Sousuke. “He’s not serious.”</p>
<p>“Yes I am,” Haru corrects. He pauses mid-load and scowls. “What is that smell?”</p>
<p>“Sousuke brought his dinner with him.” Makoto takes over unpacking the box, subtly shooing Haru away from the task. “Haru, Sousuke is going to stay with us for a few days. Our experiment didn’t go so well.”</p>
<p>“I told you it wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>He smiles that polite smile Sousuke recognizes from the conversation at the door to his home. Restraint. Of what, Makoto has had centuries to perfect keeping hidden. “You did.”</p>
<p>There’s tension there. Certainly they argued about it. Haru hums and steps out from behind the bar to make his way to his dark side of the room where his guitar sits in its case on a chair. He looks over his shoulder as he unzips the main compartment, blue alight and mischievous. “I’m swimming tonight.”</p>
<p>Makoto straightens and regards Sousuke with some hesitancy. “...All right, Haru.”</p>
<p>That piques Sousuke’s interest. How bizarre. “Swimming?”</p>
<p>When Makoto can’t decide on a succinct answer (which if it were actually swimming would not be a difficult task so that tells Sousuke it is not swimming) Haru closes the gap for him. “I guess you’ll see.”</p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It isn’t exactly a traditionalist’s interpretation of a day at the beach. However, with a shift in perspective, where one’s night is technically one’s day, it does not differ much. There are some noticeable differences in outcomes, but they only apply to Sousuke. For it is, again, three in the morning and bitterly fucking cold.</p>
<p>Sousuke crashed for a nap in the back room of the bar around eleven. He has no evidence to prove <em>someone </em>forced him to do it, but he has his suspicions. As he was already tired and stressed out, it would’ve been easy to gently suggest he lay his head down on a stack of packaged napkins and have it sound like a good idea, absolutely no hellish powers of compulsion required. But that he so quickly succumbed to a three hour sleep so deep it may’ve been a pass into an alternate dimension? Well. Haru sure looked amused when he woke up temporarily without a name.</p>
<p>The coat he has isn’t really doing it for him; it’s a standard fall coat, heavier than the moto jacket from the other night, but no match against a beach in early morning October. Graciously, the air is still and the sky is clear. Wind on top of precipitation would make looking tough and unbothered considerably more difficult. What would be helpful going forward involves articles of clothing built to make him suffer, like the asphyxiative embrace of a turtleneck or a scarf, but avoiding such constrictive objects has integrated itself into his very personality by this point.</p>
<p>Moonlight is illuminating tonight as well. Makoto sits directly in the sand, high up the beach with his arms wrapped around his drawn up knees. He is placid, as he tends to be, focus distant and spaced out over the water. Sousuke stays his attention on him from his vantage point nearer the water line, where he has been putzing about in an attempt to stay moving and warm.</p>
<p><em>Not as strong as I used to be</em>, he tucked into the details of their first conversation. <em>Certainly</em>, he also said, the addition of the affirmative a strange tick Sousuke finds he punctuates his own thoughts with now as recently as the walk from the bar to the shore. Definitely. It must be because he doesn’t eat peo— excuse him, <em>feed</em> on people. But there are alternatives to human blood. Haru proves it now; Sousuke tears his gaze away in time to see a wave of that unfathomable black against the night sky rise and crash into the ocean.</p>
<p>Swimming, yes. Hunting, also yes. Haru chooses fish. It isn’t the same, apparently. Vampire curses are designed for human blood and any bloodlust they endure is specifically attenuated for humans. Haru has forced himself to adapt differently. Sousuke decided not to push Makoto for more information on the bloodlust part. But Sousuke fills in the blanks here that feeding on fish blood keeps Haru from sitting on the beach, listless and passive, as Makoto does now. It’s how he is strong enough to wield his terrible pet, and why Makoto’s hypnosis is limited, draining, and flimsy.</p>
<p>Watching Haru, engulfed by his shadow pet pulled into the shape of a bird, sail over the currents and break the surface of the water like a threaded needle piercing cloth is mesmerizing. Awesome, in the very truest sense of the word. So the accompanying brittle hollow in his chest, ever expanding the longer he stands and watches, stands out. Sousuke does not long to do what Haru’s doing. Watching him does not make Sousuke feel alone. This isn’t Sousuke’s pain.</p>
<p>He looks back at Makoto, sitting still and small. Now the ache is all his own, no familiar curse manipulation to blame.</p>
<p>Sousuke walks to him and, in a move the rational, anti-occultic entity part of his mind is staunchly against, offers him a hand up. Only then does Makoto snap out of wherever he was, and stares at Sousuke’s offer as if he’s never seen the gesture before.</p>
<p>He reaches out without the fear or anger he should be grappling with because he can’t entirely bring himself to see Makoto for the undead inhuman thing he claims to be. There is no evil villain to lash out at here, Sousuke’s proverbial chains are slack in Makoto’s reluctant grasp. Maybe that’s why his anguish about all this is quiet for now. Not gone, but quiet, until the consequences reveal themselves more clearly. For now, he can’t summon the righteous fury to hate this guy. It wouldn’t be fair or honest. They don’t need to be friends but they can be civil.</p>
<p>“What is it?” Makoto asks.</p>
<p>“An offer?” Sousuke holds his ground. “You feel sad.”</p>
<p>Makoto blinks some haze out of his features. “Do I?” Then he sours. “I guess you’d know.”</p>
<p>“Come on, I’m gonna freeze to death if I stand still too long.”</p>
<p>Makoto looks down at his arms and hesitates, but does reach slowly for Sousuke’s hand. He stops just short of touching Sousuke, up against a mental barrier he does not look sure about crossing. Sousuke crosses it, not finding helping another person up anything insurmountable or noteworthy, but immediately understands why Makoto did not want to do it.</p>
<p>He is corpse cold.</p>
<p>Sousuke‘s breath draws sharp. Makoto hears it, and tries to pull back, but Sousuke recovers from the initial shock on his next exhale and holds tight. “It just surprised me.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s mouth presses firm, clamped down on any further protest but doubtful of the development. He doesn’t resist Sousuke’s pull and is coaxed to stand, so he isn’t in complete opposition to this idea. Sousuke holds onto Makoto’s hand longer than is strictly necessary, too fascinated by the feel of his chilled but pliable skin, and curious if it will take on any of his heat. It doesn’t.</p>
<p>Ultimately he is the one to drop the contact as well, belatedly remembering Makoto’s initial stiff reluctance. But Makoto doesn’t hurry to return his arm to himself, and the furrow on his brow is equal parts addled and sorrowful.</p>
<p>“Do you feel any of this?” Sousuke gestures around. All that layering Makoto wears had him thinking Makoto was colder than a mortal maybe, but at least capable of generating heat to stay comfortable.</p>
<p>Makoto shakes his head. “I like the weight of fabric. But it doesn’t make me warm.”</p>
<p>“And Haru?”</p>
<p>Makoto leads the direction of their walk, taking him back to the water. “Haru feeds,” he says simply. “He takes life and reaps the benefits of it as he’s supposed to. He finds it’s worth the risk. I don’t.”</p>
<p>Haru’s nowhere to be seen now. The sea is calm. “What’s the risk?”</p>
<p>“Why do you want to know? You claimed you didn’t care as long as we could stay out of each other’s way.”</p>
<p>“There’s been a lot of processing,” Sousuke confesses. “You weren’t even real two days ago. Give me a break.” And, surely, they both know there is no staying out of each other’s way. If not for the rest of Sousuke’s natural born life, then for Makoto’s. “I’m in less shock now.”</p>
<p>As he does, Makoto weighs and crafts his response in prolonged silence. “There used to be a lot of vampires. Folklore always has roots in some version of truth, right? History isn’t always written down. There’s a lot Haru and I have seen that didn’t make it onto a page. Vampires are one of those things that didn’t get written down well.” He pauses. “They used to be horrible, insatiable monsters and eventually, terrorized communities of humans long gone now collected the courage to go after them and succeeded in executing most of them, is the short version.”</p>
<p>Them. Not Makoto. He isn’t an insatiable monster. Sousuke can’t fathom it.</p>
<p>“They don’t start as insatiable monsters, though,” Makoto continues. “The more they feed, the stronger they become. They find hidden power. They want more of it. <em>Then </em>they’re monsters, after enough death. They change after they kill enough. They turn more mortals to follow their path of destruction as they reach their limit. Haru doesn’t eat how he is supposed to, but we have no reason to believe he’s safe. There are no loopholes. If he is able to feed, it follows that he is able to… change. One day, maybe.”</p>
<p>“So why does he do it?”</p>
<p>Here, Makoto’s voice strains. “Because he wants to feel.”</p>
<p>“What, the swim?”</p>
<p>“Mm. Yes. But more than that. The energy from the hunt... there’s warmth, power, satiety… it’s worth the risk for him. It’s as close to feeling alive as we remember. He is sure he won’t become corrupted and hurt anyone. Or he’s sure I wouldn’t let him. I don’t know which exactly.”</p>
<p>Unsaid is that Makoto is not sure he wouldn’t hurt someone in the same situation. Also unsaid is that by choosing not to hunt, Makoto only feels cold, weak, and starving. Immortal, but always suffering. Wanting.</p>
<p>“Are you two the only vampires left? You don’t turn people so you’d be the end of the line, right?”</p>
<p>“I wish we were. But no, we’re not.” Bitter, now. His eyes get distant. Makoto is thinking of someone, or many someones. “At least, I have no reason to think we are. But I guess since we keep to ourselves, I can’t know for sure.”</p>
<p>“Where are the others?”</p>
<p>Makoto’s smile is wry. “I don’t know. We aren't exactly celebrated among our kind. We don’t want anyone to find us. Iwatobi has proven a reliably isolated home for some time.”</p>
<p>That would be ominous if Sousuke weren’t rock solidly confident in Makoto’s assessment of Iwatobi. The only better, more improbable, hiding place other than a spit of flagging fishing town would be Antarctica. “Well, you can’t be the first shitty vampires ever? What happens to vamps that do what you do?”</p>
<p>“I’m figuring that out as I go.”</p>
<p>“Can you… die?” He groans inside. Dumb question. “Again, anyway. For good.”</p>
<p>“I’m figuring that out,” Makoto repeats.</p>
<p>Sousuke stops walking, a new numbness spreading throughout him that isn’t from the cold. One thing he struggles with is a person who has given up. It is such a waste, especially so when given the gift of immortality. Makoto stops as well, but won’t pretend like he doesn’t know why Sousuke did. “You can’t begin to fathom what half a millennia of starvation is like, Sousuke.”</p>
<p>“Haru’s out there,” he swings an arm out to point to the expanse, “living best he can, right now. You could do that. You could feel all that. For a few fuckin’ fish.”</p>
<p>Makoto turns his hands out in deferrence. “I’m not going to get into another argument with you. You can’t understand this. You don’t know anything about it.”</p>
<p>“But it affects me now,” Sousuke pushes. “You’re tied to me. If you waste away or whatever then what happens to me?”</p>
<p>“It won’t happen,” Makoto sighs. “Don’t worry so much about that.”</p>
<p>“How would you know?”</p>
<p>“Because hell is not known for its generous mercies.” He’s going flat on Sousuke. Tired of this exact conversation, with responses he has had on deck for ages. “This is a curse. It does not get bored and stop if I ignore it long enough.”</p>
<p>“Then eat and make it <em>worth it</em>. Why choose to be weak?”</p>
<p>“What do you know about weakness, Sousuke? I—” He catches a noise in his throat and averts his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this.”</p>
<p>This isn’t what Sousuke had in mind for keeping Makoto company. He wanted to cheer him up, not continue to remind him of all the reasons he feels as terrible as he does. And he’s right, anyway. Sousuke only knows what Makoto has deigned important enough to tell him. There is more to it that Sousuke has not earned. He gets so worked up about this sort of thing, to the detriment of any self-regulation.</p>
<p>“All right. I’m sorry.” Makoto looks back to him none the worse for wear and not walking off either, so that’s good. Sousuke didn’t piss him off again. “Can I ask one more thing?” Sousuke lightens his tone to signal he’s moving on to something less contentious to keep him there.</p>
<p>“My insistence that you don’t hasn’t stopped you yet.” But he’s relieved, and perking up, despite the stuffy response.</p>
<p>“The teeth.” He makes little fangs on either side of his face with his pointer fingers. “Do you have the teeth? I tried to check but—”</p>
<p>Makoto is there and then he is not and Sousuke’s looking straight ahead and then everything wrenches to the side and pins him there. A strength he can’t reconcile wrenches his head one way and forces his shoulder down the opposite way, pulling the right side of his neck taut. There is the acute sensation that the hand holding his head in place could snap his neck with little effort, so coiled and restrained is the force beneath the palm, and he doesn’t dare to test it by attempting to escape the hold. Makoto stands, impossibly, flush against his back, solid and overbearing in form.</p>
<p>His voice is low and close in Sousuke’s ear: “What do you think?”</p>
<p>Sousuke shivers and swallows hard, the angle of his neck and pressure on his spine lodging a crow-shaped lump of fear in his throat that won’t go down. He can’t answer.</p>
<p>“The cut on your right hand is three centimeters long. The cut on your left, two.” Sousuke jerks, involuntarily, and Makoto responds by shifting the fucking gravity of the ground they stand on, tying him to an invisible anvil meant to drag him to the pits of hell. He is immobilized. “I smelled that before you walked in, over the rotted meat in your food. I hear your heart beating all the time. I see your veins carry life to your skin. Do you think I don’t <em>want </em>that?”</p>
<p>Is he imagining the sensation of two barely perceptible points on his skin, because it’s all he can think about clearly? He must be. There can’t be teeth hovering over his pounding pulse, only just gracing the soft flesh in front of the strained tendon of his neck, from this angle. Makoto wouldn’t do that, just to scare him. He doesn’t have the fangs. But he wants Sousuke to know he could, and chooses not to.</p>
<p>“You don’t know weakness.”</p>
<p>The gravity rebounds and Makoto is off him entirely, to reappear where he started. Sousuke stumbles back, left hand braced on his thigh and the right slapped over his neck as he wrangles his erratic breathing into submission.</p>
<p>“Fucking shit,” he ekes by. “Point fucking made, all right?”</p>
<p>Makoto’s not smug or amused with his stunt. He looks terrible, worse than before, soaked through with remorse and guilt. He’s committed to keeping a wedge between them at any cost, including uncharacteristic unveiled threats and shows of force, apparently. Sousuke, familiar with rejection of all stripes by now, knows what Makoto is doing. As is often the case, words weren’t enough to get through to Sousuke, Makoto had to show him.</p>
<p>Too on cue to be random, a black wave surges towards them and from it, on the crest of momentum, walks Haru onto the beach. Sousuke somehow expected him to have transformed into some sort of fish creature, and is mildly disappointed to see he looks not only the exact same, but dry. If he was out there shotgunning fish blood, there’s no evidence of that either.</p>
<p>Haru must have sensed something amiss out at sea. An unnatural shift in gravity would do it, in Sousuke’s estimate. He cocks his head when he looks at Makoto, who has since re-masked himself and smiles at Haru in greeting.</p>
<p>“Good hunt?”</p>
<p>Haru hums an approximate affirmative, maybe. He flexes his hand at his side. “Do you want to go out? I’m feeling… better.”</p>
<p>“Not tonight, thank you. It’s getting late for all of us.”</p>
<p>Sousuke, still recovering his dignity from the last fuck up, cannot resist. His inner child is too prone to touching plates he’s been told are hot. “Go out where?”</p>
<p>“I like his answer more.” From Haru’s sneakered feet stretches his pet, his void on a leash, towards Sousuke and Makoto both.</p>
<p>Sousuke steps back, nervously. “Uh, what? Wait a minute.”</p>
<p>Makoto glares at him, in a “you really gone and done it now” sort of way. But he doesn’t flinch away from Haru’s shadow, and Sousuke’s done enough embarrassing himself for one day. He won’t give Makoto the satisfaction of thinking he scared him off. Sousuke’s not that fragile. He stops backtracking and instead steps onto the void.</p>
<p>Makoto is not as enthusiastic to step fully on, and Sousuke is increasingly daring today: “If you don’t come with us, I could get sad, because you cursed me to.”</p>
<p>A guilt trip is nothing compared to a direct threat on Sousuke’s life. Makoto is caught. He sighs in resignation, and steps on.</p>
<p>Haru’s shadow swallows them all, and they become the sea.</p>
<p>They don’t swim. They pass through. Sousuke looks around and does not see Makoto or Haru. He looks down. He does not see himself. What he can see, though, is everything else in stunning, illuminated contrast.</p>
<p>The current they’ve become plunges downward along the seabed. It is no muddy, barren sea floor Sousuke recognizes; they’re deep, and far out. To think they’re moving fast implies they are an object moving on a trajectory encountering little physical resistance. It’s not accurate. They’re not anything in the world, only an idea appearing where it wants to go.</p>
<p>Haru takes them down into the canyons of the earth, up the slopes of literal mountains that will never be found. They fly with lonely giant squid, pass over enormous statuesque crabs. They hunt mercilessly with orca pods and play with dancing dolphins and listen to the layered symphonies of clicks and mournful songs carrying stories of grief and reunion through the water. Deeper, farther, to where the earth churns itself out at its faults in molten pillows that build and build and build into sprawling continents of scar tissue that inevitably will return to the mantle from whence it came in an endless mobius loop of death and rebirth.</p>
<p>He is infinite joy and awe, he is Haru’s wanderlust and fervor, he is Makoto’s yearning and heartache. It means they feel him too, and Makoto’s darkness lightens despite his pains. Makoto can’t help but allow such novel wonderment into himself, such pure joys are infectious and cleansing of sorrows. Soon Makoto is laughing, punchdrunk off of and humored by Sousuke’s childlike naiveté. Sousuke laughs with him, without any burden of self-consciousness, as there is no longer a singular self to be conscious of. Is this how it feels? To have someone to laugh with? To share life with? Does Makoto finally feel warm, since Sousuke does? Sousuke could gladly laugh with him forever.</p>
<p>A shift ripples through them. He now folds in Haru’s ravenous hunger, and Makoto’s subsequent panic. The laughing stops. Ahead now, a glistening school of fish. They shimmer and sparkle, bathed in light of origin nondescript, light that can’t be moonlight, can’t be the Sea of Japan anymore, if it ever was. They grow and stretch together as they approach the school. They are starving, they are frenzied, and Haru does not heed Makoto’s warnings nor Sousuke’s confusion.</p>
<p>They pass through the fish, every last one. The endless blue surrounding them stains a dark and murky red as Haru pulls the blood from their thousands of individual bodies simultaneously, heedless of their veins or flesh or scales. The grisly plume passes into Haru, and so passes into Sousuke. If he had a stomach, he would retch, so potent and thick is the coppery slurry. In their wake of destruction, the fish are still. Intact on the outside, shredded from within. Thousands drift apart out into the vast abyss. Thousands of little dull corpses, thousands of little empty eyes, thousands of little gaping mouths.</p>
<p>Sousuke falls out of sync. His selfless form is a horror. Where are his lungs, his legs, his screaming voice? He fights against them, thrashing and flailing, begging Haru to release him, not to hurt him, to get away from him. In response, Haru bites down. He holds Sousuke in his jaw— his shadow’s jaw— piercing jagged spears through him all over to keep him from struggling. Unbearably, it burns. Without a real body, it engulfs <em>him</em>, the very intimate him, parts that can’t heal if they incinerate. No choice, Haru has no choice, a thought forced on his consciousness with all the abrasiveness of sandpaper dragging over dry knuckles. He can taste the ash and smell the sulfur he is becoming.</p>
<p>Then comes the rain.</p>
<p>Blanketing him, cooling him, and dissolving the fangs that hold him in place. It saturates the ash and clears away the sulfur. Sousuke stops fighting back, exhausted but soothed. Makoto guides him in from the fringes of their current and secures him safely in their middle. He doesn’t let Sousuke go, and this time Sousuke doesn’t want him to.</p>
<p>Sousuke opens his eyes to a brilliant, star-studded sky on the violet cusp of dawn. The rest of his face is burrowed into something soft. A thick, rust-colored sweater. Makoto’s arms wrap around his shoulders, holding him steady, tight, and upright as a world with form comes back into focus. Haru returned them all intact, despite Sousuke’s near suicide into the middle of the ocean. Makoto held on.</p>
<p>When he breathes again, Makoto releases him. Haru stays at a distance; his blue eyes are not captivating this time. They’re menacing, quickening Sousuke’s pulse. There is no regret on Haru’s face. Only grim indifference. Makoto is similarly detached.</p>
<p>He’s dangerous. <em>They’re dangerous.</em> It’s something Sousuke already knew before, an oil sitting on the surface but not able to mix into the water. It’s a different knowing now. It’s a knowing that permeates him. They are real. They are deadly. Haru wanted him to see that. Makoto wanted him to know that. Tonight was a lesson.</p>
<p>Well, he finally gets it. He backs away, and not just from Haru.</p>
<p>“Sousuke,” Makoto says quietly. “Let me take you home.”</p>
<p>He’s too afraid to say no.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. two guys in a double wide coffin no feet apart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sousuke stands alone on a flat, parched wasteland again, searching for him.</p><p>The figures from before are closer. They were barely individual forms on the horizon then. Now, they’re sharp black cut outs against the rusty red sky, watching him. There must be at least a dozen. They are humanoid, but they are also vultures. They’re waiting for something to pass. Their anticipation is humid and thick in the dry, dusty air.</p><p>Sousuke screams out, again, and produces nothing. Where is Makoto, who is cursed to experience his fear? The pressure coming off his stalkers puts a shake in Sousuke’s knees. He isn’t equipped to fight them off, should they charge him. Shouldn’t Makoto feel that he’s in danger? Shouldn’t he compelled to protect his familiar, even if he doesn’t want to?</p><p>Did he ever mention if protection was part of it at all?</p><p>The errant thought expands beyond himself. The figures animate. They heard him. They know he is not protected, they taste his fear and from it, grow into hulking feathered giants, each with a face made of faces, all contorted with anguish and salivating. Hungry, Sousuke hears coming back to him in response to his careless and unfettered thought.</p><p>hungry</p><p>They take flight.</p><p>Hungry</p><p>A spray of a viscous, dark red mist coats his face.</p><p>HUNGRY</p><p>There’s a knock on the door to his right.</p><p>“Sousuke?”</p><p>He’s too exhausted to jolt awake. He comes to like he’s shaking off one thousand years of fitful sleep and his body doesn’t care for it. Sousuke turns his head towards his door with some effort and scowls at it.</p><p>“Sousuke, it’s me, are you all right?” Pound, pound. More urgent. “Can you at least answer me?”</p><p>Sei. He hasn’t spoken to or seen him in days, conspicuously ignoring his texts and calls. Sousuke leaves as soon as he is up and ready and the dread begins to push him out the door, and returns (escorted of course) only to sleep. Since securing three days away from the restaurant, he has spent it sitting at a high top in the corner of The Last Drop. He tidies up if it occurs to him. Sometimes he researches vampires and curses for a way out in vain, as little is relevant, not written by teenagers, or translated for him. But he mostly sits there like he’s supposed to until called on to serve or acknowledged, too tired to put together a plan. Acknowledgement which doesn’t happen, as Makoto leaves him alone and only walks him home at a distance. Haru throws him withering, annoyed looks after he shows up past sundown, but those are not looks Sousuke meets.</p><p>Wait. It’s been three days. This is the fourth. He has work today.</p><p>Sousuke flails blindly for his phone on his nightstand, secures it upside down, and checks the time.</p><p>Three in the afternoon, dwarfed by four missed calls and a string of texts from Kazuma.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>“Sousuke, Kazuma and Isuzu are paying me to murder you. You might want to talk to me first!”</p><p>He sits up and forces himself out of bed. He wouldn’t think he slept at all if it weren’t for the stupid recurring nightmare. That little scene has been increasingly intense ever since Haru opted for ingratiating Sousuke into the misfit vampire club with a live demonstration. It never leaves his head for longer than a skip, plumes of blood and trails of bodies littering the roadsides of his thoughts.</p><p>If only that were all he was dealing with, because even when he’s awake he can’t escape the ever-present feeling that someone is standing behind him. Every five minutes he’s whirling around, finding a mirror, or putting his back to a wall. By day three, his hands took on an intermittent tremor. His appetite never recovered after the burger debacle and his stomach now only accepts convenience store potato chips as nutritional currency; anything else is charged back as nausea.</p><p>The walk from his bed to his door is a death march, but he makes it. On the other side of the door, Sei is definitely posed to barge in.</p><p>“Where’s the fire?” Sousuke asks.</p><p>Sei glowers at him. “Fuck off with that. I gave you space but now you’re missing work. You’ve literally never done that, not even after your uncle’s funeral. So <em>now,”</em> he grunts, slamming his forearm into the door as Sousuke rolls his eyes and attempts to close it, “you’re gonna tell me what’s going on.”</p><p>“He died years ago. It’s not the emotional gut punch you think it is.”</p><p>“You’re changing the subject.”</p><p>He narrows his eyes. Sei matches his glare. In truth, Sousuke hasn’t had the bandwidth to cook up a lie convincing enough for his total and complete behavioral one-eighty. He’s already used this tactic on Sei, the one where he gets rude and physically walls him out. He did that when Makoto showed up. Sei won’t let it go this time, pit bull that he is when it comes to other people’s problems.</p><p>“I’m just…” Thinking on his feet is hard when he can barely stand on them. “... figuring some shit out.”</p><p>Sei is unimpressed. “You’re too young for a mid-life crisis and too old for a quarter.”</p><p>“Thirds?” His head gets fuzzy and stabby. Dammit. Some time to breathe would be nice before all the unbearable anguish.</p><p>It does not go unnoticed. “Okay. My tough love approach just feels like I’m throwing rocks at a stray puppy. Can you please come eat something? I left out a package of spicy senbei as bait before I went to bed last night and you didn’t take it so I know you’re not eating.”</p><p>There’s no choice here. Sousuke has to go along or this becomes a bigger thing than he can deal with, which it already is, but at least Sei isn’t involved. The more he stalls the harder it will be, too. “Fine.”</p><p>Sousuke brushes his teeth and washes his face and meets Sei in the kitchen. His plan for a meal comes up short; maybe there’s some lunch meat that hasn’t gone bad? But any stress that causes him is resolved when he notices Sei’s pulled two bowls out and busies himself at the stove. Then the smell hits him, and the stress returns tenfold alongside a lurch in his gut.</p><p>Fish. Great.</p><p>Ten minutes later, Sei serves it up over rice and, because the universe hates Sousuke specifically, drizzles a red sauce over it. Behind that follows water. It’s very kind of his friend, the same friend who made Sousuke go pick up a pizza the same day he had his wisdom teeth taken out because they forgot there was a baseball game starting.</p><p>Yes, very kind. Sousuke would go so far as to say it is suspiciously kind. “Thanks.”</p><p>“Somethin’ easy if you’re feeling sick.” Sei sits across from him. “Really, Sousuke. Is it a break up? Did you lose a lot of money? Did that weird guy from the other night show up to threaten you? What is it?”</p><p>Sousuke takes a small bite and tries so very hard not to spit it out. He digs a trench in the rice to make it appear like he’s eaten more than he has. “No. He’s no one.” Heart didn’t like that one. He blinks through the heat. “I don’t know, Sei.”</p><p>“Bullshit. This ain’t you.”</p><p>Makoto would feel how uncomfortable he was if he were here and stop crawling up his ass. Sei doesn’t care if Sousuke’s comfortable at all, he just bosses Sousuke around for his desired outcomes. No. That’s not true. Sei is caring in the way he knows how to be. Wanting Makoto here is just familiar curse shit. Logic dictates Makoto has had plenty of opportunities to care over the last three days. And he didn’t; <em>good</em>. That’s how it should be.</p><p>“Sooouuusuke,” Sei sing-songs.</p><p>“Yeah,” Sousuke answers, and clears his throat. “No, you’re right. I’m— It’s uh… complicated. I’ve met some new people, I’ve had a little shift in perspective on some things. Just working through it.”</p><p>Sei loads his chopsticks with what must be half his bowl’s contents and shovels it into his mouth. “Buddy,” he chews, “that’s a cult.”</p><p>Is that better or worse than the truth? Sousuke weighs leaning into it. No, no. That is not a problem he needs to leave for future Sousuke. “What it is,” he decides, “is personal. I’m all right, Sei. As long as I’m still paying you rent, you can rest easy.”</p><p>For the sake of keeping up appearances, he forces down another bite. Sei, however, sets his chopsticks down and sighs, the long drawn out kind of sigh that precedes a difficult subject. “I really hope you’re not lying to me because— you might recall my saying so and have definitely seen my texts alluding to it— I really need to talk to you.”</p><p>Ah, yes. Yep. The niceness was to soften the blow of what’s coming next. His suspicions were well-founded. “You have me.”</p><p>“It’s Momo.”</p><p>It shouldn’t hit him as hard as it does, but everything hits him harder than it should these days and this one sort of sucks. His face flushes warm and a heaviness settles on his shoulders and his fragile, fractured self is eager to seize on this and offer up one very vivid solution immediately, but other than that, he grins. “Guess my squatter privileges are hereby revoked.”</p><p>“I tried to tell you sooner.” His shrug is sympathetic, at least. “He’s back from overseas early and Isuzu doesn’t have the room.”</p><p>“Hey, I knew that coming in. It’s all good.” He’s going to hurl. Momo wasn’t supposed to be back until the summer, when his university went on break. Not like there ever is a good time to get kicked out, but this is a really bad time to get kicked out.</p><p>“He’s had a change of heart, I guess. Kazuma still has your old room open, right?”</p><p>Sure, if he isn’t using it to store all of his excess resentment towards Sousuke for his various abdications of duty. Sousuke isn’t honest with Sei in these sorts of matters, though. A little bit of Sousuke’s own ego, a little bit of Sei’s knack for getting too involved and too intense. “I think he turned it into an office but there’s always somewhere to crash. The house is too big for him anyway.”</p><p>Sei smiles. “Great! He’s gonna be here mid next week. You got some time and I can help move things over to Kazuma’s if you need it.”</p><p>“Nope,” Sousuke clips. “No need. Don’t keep much. I’ll be outta here as soon as I can, if I can use your car.”</p><p>Sei gestures his consent. “Hey, as soon as he figures out where to go next, the room’s yours again. It’s just temporary, all right? You know I hate to do it.”</p><p>That much is true. Sei wouldn’t do this to Sousuke for anyone other than his siblings. He’d do anything for them, and has never been vague about that conviction. Isuzu and Momo have never had to worry about a risk without a safety net. They’ve never had to go through anything alone. Fuck that, they’ve never entertained a passing thought they might ever have to.</p><p>Sousuke grinds a stray grain of rice between his molars way past what’s safe for the surface of his teeth. There will be no tooth left back there at this rate before all this is over. “I know you do.” He forces a nonchalant shrug and absolves Sei of any lingering guilt, not that he regrets anything he does. “I’ll be out by tonight.”</p><p>Sei takes his dish to the sink and starts cleaning up the cooking mess. Another sign he is sympathetic, even if he isn’t sorry. “It doesn’t need to be today, Sou. You should wait until you patch things over with Kazuma before asking to live there.”</p><p>The turned back gives Sousuke an opportunity to dump his meal into the trash unseen. It’s too late for the integrity of his stomach, but it saves him a confrontation and hurt feelings. “Somehow I already know that’s gonna end up being the same conversation.”</p><p>“Good point,” Sei throws over his shoulder. “Bring me your bowl. Car keys are on the hook.”</p><p>“Thanks.” It’s more deflated than he intends for it to be, low enough to be trampled by Sei’s unsolicited advice.</p><p>He won’t say it to Sousuke’s face, of course. He speaks to the running water. “Maybe this is good for you, you know? Maybe you’ll find your own place.”</p><p>So much for temporary; he’s letting Sousuke down easy. Sei now handles Sousuke with kid gloves and it’s all Sousuke can do not to launch his ceramic dish into the wall instead of setting it near the sink. Sousuke has depended on Sei nearly half his life to always be direct and honest with him. Now because of Sousuke’s loss of control they don’t even have that.</p><p>He can’t find the diplomacy to answer. Or maybe he does but doesn’t hear himself over the ringing in his ears. Either way, Sei doesn’t say anything more. Sousuke returns to his room, through the body aches and the heartsickness, and begins packing his clothes. His mind maps out where his things will go once back in his old family home.</p><p>His heart wonders if the store room at The Last Drop has temperature control.</p>
<hr/><p>Four times.</p><p>Four times Sousuke set out for Kazuma’s and arrived in front of this fucking bar. Four times he was certain he was going east and ended up west, driving Sei’s Honda into some fucking interdimensional portal and emerging the opposite fucking directing he set off in. Should he be surprised? No. But he is about to lose it, whatever is left that has not been lost.</p><p>His phone now shows five missed Kazuma calls and the messages bar stopped displaying previews and now just says “new messages”. His avoidance is now beyond not wanting to do it and soundly just because he has no idea what to say if he responds. It’s eleven at night; he’s been driving in circles for over an hour. Sei needs his car back for work. Sousuke’s head is splitting in half by now forcing himself to be away from Makoto this long.</p><p>He twists both hands over the top of the vinyl steering wheel in opposite directions and a truly tortured wail slams into the back of his teeth. In less than a week Sousuke went from waxing poetic about a strong will and a commitment to work within his new limitations, to literally driving in circles out of control of his mind and actions. One week ago he was showing up to hilariously bad first dates naive enough to think it was a bad thing. One week ago he was still thinking about what he wanted to do with his life and who he wanted to do it with. One week ago he was a normal boring person with no real existential fears threatening his every waking moment besides the standard fear of dying alone and forgotten, or wondering if there is life after death, all things everyone else fears. No, he has those answers now, and he wishes he didn’t. Whatever life was supposed to be, it wasn’t ever supposed to be lost to a literal curse from hell.</p><p>This is spiralling. Sousuke doesn’t spiral. He takes a deep breath in through his nose. One more try.</p><p>Sousuke pulls away from the curb, turns, and drives east. Right at the light. Two blocks. Left past the convenience store. Five blocks. Around the curve. Past the park. Left at the stop sign. Straight.</p><p>Just ahead. Dry cleaners… PC repair...</p><p>The Last Drop. His heart sinks.</p><p>Sousuke parks just past the establishment and drops his forehead to the steering wheel. His phone buzzes in the cup holder. A strained eye to the side reveals it’s Sei wondering where he is with the car. It is half past eleven.</p><p>He does not look up to see who is knocking softly on the passenger side window. The way the tension drains out of his core when it happens, instead of locking up in surprise as it would if it were a stranger, tells on the unseen actor. With a limp hand, he unlocks the doors, and stays slumped forward even after Makoto opens the door and leans inside.</p><p>“Are you ready to come in now?”</p><p>“Go away.”</p><p>“Do you want me to?”</p><p>“Would I just end up back here?”</p><p>“Probably, yes, if you don’t get into a wreck first. You’re very distraught and shouldn’t be driving.”</p><p>Sousuke rolls his forehead along the wheel to look over at the only person he will likely ever want to see and never want to see again simultaneously. He keeps his glare sharp despite the pain it causes to maintain this level of anger and resentment towards a person he is punished for shunning. “Don’t make me go into that fucking bar.”</p><p>Makoto is taken aback and frowns. It can’t be for Sousuke’s language, that much he’s never hidden. But that deeply entrenched sadness Makoto carries with him turns outward and considers Sousuke this time. The poignant attention makes Sousuke redden and scowl.</p><p>“And don’t look at me like that.”</p><p>Makoto looks into the back seat where Sousuke’s duffel bags and suitcases sit. “What is all this stuff?”</p><p>“I got kicked out.”</p><p>“You have nowhere to go?”</p><p>“I’ve been <em>trying </em>to go stay with my cousin,” Sousuke pushes through a clenched jaw.</p><p>Makoto mouths a silent <em>ah</em> as the pieces fall into place. “Would you like to stay with me?”</p><p>Sousuke bolts upright, in offense to the offer as well as the way his treacherous heart soars to receive it. It feels like turning down water after a month lost in a desert. For his dignity, he must. <em>“No.”</em></p><p>“I have an extra room. And you wouldn’t be so sick all the time if you did.”</p><p>“I’m not living out of a store room next to boxes of rum and floor cleaner.”</p><p>Makoto’s response is a prolonged beat of silence, which erupts into a bubbling laugh he quickly contains and stuffs beneath his words. “Do you think I live here, Sousuke? At a bar?”</p><p>Redder. Flustered. Sweat beads at his neck. “What the hell else would I think?! You are always here!”</p><p>Makoto lowers himself into the passenger seat and closes the door. Sousuke’s expectations are so entirely subverted he only stares in disbelief as it happens and can’t think of why Makoto would willingly put himself in Sousuke’s space after avoiding him like a sixteenth century plague that probably killed him to begin with. “Come on. We don’t live far.”</p><p>“What about your bar?”</p><p>“Haru can handle it for one night.”</p><p>Immediately, no headache. No nausea. No aches. No mangled, yearning soul. Maybe, soon, some sleep— <em>without </em>traumatic nightmares? Some goddamn food his body won’t reject? He turns the key over and shifts into drive. If only swallowing his pride could nourish him, he’d be set. “...One night.”</p><p>The impenetrable dam holding back any normal fatigable human emotions Sousuke could perhaps relate to cracks. Makoto sighs a shaky breath and his easy expression whittles back and reveals lines of stress and long-standing sunken pockets of exhaustion beneath his eyes and at his cheeks. He manages to make his “I smile like it’s easy and I’m unaffected but really I’m a sad vampire boy” routine look so real and natural Sousuke forgot Makoto puts himself through his own personal hell by forcing himself to not tend to his familiar’s distress, of which Sousuke has been generating plenty for himself. He looks out to the road with guilt in his gut, away from Makoto’s gracious nod.</p><p>“Thank you, Sousuke.”</p><p>He peels off and sets down the road ahead. Within seconds, he realizes he innately knows where to go. “This is so fucked up.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>And, silence. Nothing else to add to that one.</p><p>Their drive leads deep into an older neighborhood where the roads and houses mold to the hilly environment, as compared to the east side where modern builders leveled the foundation before stacking apartments on top. It’s an area of Iwatobi that Sousuke has not seen more than a passing glance of, as no one born within the last half century lives there. It’s old money. Retired grandparents. No commerce or modernization in sight. Perfect for a couple of immortal vampires.</p><p>Without asking or insisting, Makoto helps Sousuke carry his things up a short flight of stairs and into an old, weathered home. It’s average inside. Clean, furnished, and mildly decorated. Perhaps out of date by about a decade, but exactly the sort of impatient attention to detail Sousuke might expect from someone multiple centuries old who has likely decorated dozens of homes hundreds of times by now. Having bounced between a number of bedrooms himself, the drive to make a place that’s never quite <em>home</em> look nice loses its meaning over time. It’s why he was able to pack everything he owned into a few bags and suitcases in a single evening.</p><p>As promised, Makoto has a spare room. Sousuke notices as he passes by it that he also has one made bed in the room he presumably occupies. Somehow, it never occurred to him that Makoto and Haru may be co-coffin sleepers. He snorts at his own joke as he unceremoniously drop-kicks a duffel bag into the empty spare room. Just his luck if he’s damned for life to the whims of an immortal guy who has a protective, powerful vampire for a romantic partner.</p><p>“I have a futon you can use,” Makoto informs without inquiring after Sousuke’s erratic reaction to seemingly nothing. By contrast, he sets Sousuke’s backpack down without dropping it and wheels a suitcase to the closet. “It’s typically Haru’s but he hasn’t stayed over in a long time, so I don’t think he’ll mind if you use it.”</p><p>He’s relieved to be wrong? Maybe? “Where does he live then? Upside down in a cave?”</p><p>Makoto <em>almost</em> smiles. Maybe he does have a sense of humor. “His own place is just up the stairs. Why would he live with me?”</p><p>There’s a charge to the question. A bit of good-natured teasing, even. Sousuke narrows his eyes, confused by the shift but… lighter. It’s banter. Actual human head games intended for nothing other than entertainment. Sousuke intends to meet it; an oasis of a conversation in a desert of life or death bullshit is too tempting.</p><p>He counts his reasoning out on his left hand as he makes a list: “Well you’re both immortal, have a shared terrible secret, and seem to like each other? That’s the stuff of badly written romance novels right there.”</p><p>Makoto rolls his eyes. “Sorry to rob you of your teenaged fantasy come true, but no. We are not in that sort of arrangement.”</p><p>“<em>Currently</em>, or…?”</p><p>“Where’s the fun in answering that?”</p><p>Interesting dodge. “Damn,” Sousuke tsks. “So too goes my mental image of double-wide coffins.”</p><p>This suggestion bares Makoto’s teeth in a full-on cringe. “I never understood that myth. A bed is more comfortable and it’s easier to just shut the curtains than a coffin lid.”</p><p>“Right, nonsensical. How would you manage any sort of ‘arrangement’ with a ceiling so low?” He can’t keep the smirk out of that one, try as he might, amused by his own crude conjurings. Cathartic.</p><p>Open, owlish eyes. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“I— wh—” Does he really not know? “Nevermind.”</p><p>“Focus, Sousuke. We’re not done yet and you must be exhausted.”</p><p>Sousuke follows after Makoto who leaves the room on the tail of that statement. He chases after the ghost of a smirk he <em>knows </em>he saw break through that meticulously controlled face just as he turned, goddammit, but he can never confirm it.</p><p>Returning the car proves easier and less painful than it was to load it up originally. Sousuke’s curse-lifted spirits alongside someone he doesn’t need to lie to makes for the best he’s felt all week. Better is Makoto not staring at him like he’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.</p><p>He dares not to top off Sei’s gas tank as a sort of “I know what you really meant earlier” fuck you retalitation, mostly out of pettiness even if it’s true that Sei’s shoving him out of the nest was a militant notion of kindness. Sei stumbles out of sleep long enough to let Sousuke in and get all his keys back before yawning his departure, fully moved on from the affair. Until he sees his quarter tank in the morning, that is.</p><p>Sousuke stops by the kitchen to make a farewell sandwich as Makoto waits for him outside. Fuck it, two sandwiches. The appetite may not last. Turkey and tomato. He barely chews the first; it’s gone by the time he exits the apartment. The second he works on slower during the first leg of the cold, hour-long walk back across town. No buses run this late. Makoto crinkles his nose at the very idea. The smell, he explains, can be too much in a space so small. A dark implication for a reaction so juvenile and disarming.</p><p>He showers once they return, coated in closet dust and dirt and the customary salt crust of a seaside town. It never occurred to him that occultish beings would also need regular hygiene but he’s glad they do for his own sake. Makoto likes clean scents or fragrance-free formulas. That or they offend him the least, if his senses are as sensitive as they seem. He also has a hand mirror face down in the upper neglected corner of the sink but no mirror on the wall. He should not be able to use a mirror according to legend, and this halfway measure is perplexing. Better put a pin in that question.</p><p>By the time he’s done, it’s after two in the morning. A remarkably extreme shift in sleep schedule for a guy notoriously known for rarely staying up past ten. More importantly, he feels like he could fall asleep standing up, but in a healthy way this time. A lot is going catastrophically wrong. He can forgive one night of capitulation if it means he doesn’t feel like death for a few hours.</p><p>Makoto set up the futon for Sousuke in the meantime, fully dressed and ready to be used. It isn’t something a master would do for his servant. No bond compels Makoto to help him unpack or set up his bed. It’s an independent kindness Makoto chose to do for a near-stranger.</p><p>“Thanks,” Sousuke yawns, stumbling towards it like a zombie as Makoto follows behind him. He pauses before diving to the floor for it, turning to his host. “Do you sleep?”</p><p>“I do, when I can. I’m not nocturnal like Haru. Not diurnal either. Mostly I sleep through high noon. But never for too long. Daylight still hurts me, just not like it would hurt Haru. I try to avoid the worst of it.”</p><p>Where to start. “Why’s... all that?”</p><p>Makoto shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Mmm. Well. The sensitivity is a consequence of feeding.”</p><p>“That’s a nice non-feeding perk. Some flexibility.”</p><p>Makoto’s gentle smile tells Sousuke he is naive about this assumption as well, but Makoto doesn’t correct him. A few hours at high noon sometimes is likely not enough sleep to have Makoto feeling rested. Stupid Sousuke.</p><p>“So… mirrors.”</p><p>Makoto doesn’t follow. “Yes?”</p><p>“You have one. Myth?”</p><p>Even then he goes blank in the face trying to puzzle out what Sousuke is referring to, mentally retracing where Sousuke’s been and why he would feel compelled to ask. Then he remembers he owns one, apparently, and forms an <em>oh</em> with his mouth. “Modern mirrors aren’t silver-backed. Half-myth? I have a reflection, but not on silver.”</p><p>The reaction is too bizarre to leave alone. “Did you forget about it?”</p><p>“I don’t look often,” he says. “No point really. Quick hair checks I suppose.” He answers defensively, like this is some intimately personal line of inquiry and Sousuke has asked him for a detailed read out of his teenaged diaries.</p><p>It’s not like he’s some hideous mutated monster where the mere sight of himself might lead him to a tortured song of despair; he’s handsome. Sousuke doesn’t get the sudden impatience. Then again, these basic questions may be tedious for Makoto, akin to a child following an adult around asking <em>why? why? why?</em></p><p>“Another myth busted.” Sousuke exaggerates a long stretch. “Anyway. I’ll let you go.”</p><p>Makoto turns to leave him to his sleep, but doesn’t make it all the way from the room. He turns back and searches for a way to say what’s on his mind. “Sousuke… I’m sorry about the other night at the beach.”</p><p>Not a topic Sousuke was prepared to get into today. He rubs at the back of his neck and clears his throat of sudden onset embarrassment. “Oh. That. It wasn’t a big deal.”</p><p>“It was. We scared you. I don’t know why we did it like that. I can’t stop thinking about it.” His eyes drop to the ground. “It was… cruel. And clearly it upset you. I’ve been too afraid to talk to you about it. After you looked at us like we were monsters when I let you go I just froze. And seeing how you’ve struggled and suffered with it the last few days, how you’ve avoided me and made yourself sick because it was preferable to being near me, I knew I really messed up. But I couldn’t bear it anymore watching you drive in circles earlier. I could feel it…” He trails and shies away from putting words to something so intimate. “I know you want to live your life, but thank you for letting me in a little tonight. It makes it easier on our souls, even though you hate... it.”</p><p>The <em>me</em> he almost says is sobering and heavy on Sousuke’s ear. Having been stuck at the center of his pity party all week, he perhaps misinterpreted aspects of Makoto’s distance, and Makoto understandably saw hatred in Sousuke’s silent turmoil. He just confused who the hatred was directed towards.</p><p>Sousuke approaches Makoto because he is distraught and thus, Sousuke feels like he needs to, but also some part of him wants to. “I don’t hate you.” Makoto sighs and fusses at the hem of his sweater. Relieved, but not happy for being found out. “Yeah, that scared the shit out of me. I can’t lie about it because you felt it anyway. But I needed that. I didn’t really believe you on some level about what you were. I do now. And I’m still not afraid of you or even Haru. I’m just having a hard time with all this. But I feel… better now. Not just because I’m forced to.”</p><p>Makoto’s nervousness subsides somewhat. His smile is more genuine than usual, despite it being smaller and less pronounced. “I’m glad we talked, then. Sleep well, Sousuke.” He switches off the light as he leaves and closes the door behind him.</p><p>In the dark, Sousuke stares down at an outstretched arm and can’t determine whose will moved it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. vampire pirates?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>No nightmares. No dreams. Just a dead, uninterrupted coma.</p>
<p>When he’s conscious again by late morning, Sousuke lazily gets ready according to a scaled down version of his already basic routine. He is unrushed and unbothered and blessedly himself. His squared face is clearer and less puffy, his bones aren’t so hollow. Sleep is a miracle product.</p>
<p>Makoto’s bedroom door is closed and the house is dark and drawn shut at the windows. It is the general midday time frame, if somewhat early. Maybe he finally got some sleep too.</p>
<p>Sousuke’s mortal needs are more numerous and annoying than sleep alone. He searches the kitchen for food, and feels stupid for trying. There is only a table with chairs, a sink, and empty countertops with no appliances. It’s jarring and makes the entire home appear abandoned, especially without the warmth of any light. The autumn draft doesn’t help, something he didn’t notice beneath the thick futon comforter but catches full-on now. No need to run heat either, he supposes.</p>
<p>“Good morning, Sousuke,” Makoto announces, walking past him and setting a book on the table print side open and down to hold his place. It is written in German and fraying with age at the corners. A few hundred years should be more than sufficient to pick up a few foreign languages. And complex math theorems. And physics.</p>
<p>“German?” Because Sousuke can’t help but vocalize how dumb it makes him feel by comparison.</p>
<p>“Mm,” he confirms. “I’m two centuries out of date so I’ve been catching up for a few years. Keeps me busy when I’m not at the bar.” He stops here and takes in Sousuke standing in his dreary, empty kitchen. “We should get you some food, huh?”</p>
<p>“I can order something?”</p>
<p>“They wouldn’t be able to find us.” Makoto does not elaborate. Sousuke is left to ruminate. “Is there a place you like to go?”</p>
<p>“I— sure?” He doesn’t want to leave without Makoto, feeling indebted to him after everything and wanting to give him at least one full day of relief before going off on his own. “I can wait until later, sure.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. If it’s close and indoors, we can walk. I’ll just bundle up.” He walks to a nearby closet and fishes out a long coat. “It’s cloudy today.”</p>
<p>Sousuke hums his doubt. “I can’t talk my way out of a situation where you spontaneously combust next to me.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s expression is puzzled. “How do you think I run a business if I can’t get around during the day if I need to?”</p>
<p>“I’m not convinced what you run is a legitimate business, that’s how.”</p>
<p>A nonchalant shrug as he slips into the coat. “It is not <em>entirely </em>on the books, to be fair. But I still have to get supplies sometimes.” He looks Sousuke up and down. “Is that warm enough?”</p>
<p>Sousuke pulls down the black sleeves of his crew neck that he bunched up at his elbows, self-conscious. “Yes it’s warm enough.”</p>
<p>Makoto next wraps a plaid scarf twice around his neck as his focus settles somewhere beneath Sousuke’s chin. That is where he’s looking, right? At his neck?</p>
<p>“...I run hot,” he adds.</p>
<p>Makoto tilts his head, but doesn’t move his focus. “You look like you’re going to rob a bank.”</p>
<p>He should’ve left the sleeves pushed up. It’s already too warm. Maybe he should finally cave and buy a turtleneck if Makoto’s going to stare at him like that while they talk about food. “Says the sentient bag of Werther’s.”</p>
<p>Makoto blinks and snaps out of it. “What’s that?”</p>
<p>“It’s not even fair.” Sousuke sighs. “All right. We’ll go get a late breakfast. You better not melt.”</p>
<p>“The combustion theory was more accurate. And I won’t.” He smiles. “This will be nice. I’m looking forward to it.”</p>
<p>Boiling. Sleeves go back up.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Werewolves.”</p>
<p>“Real. Voluntary extinction. The last few packs live in Canada and India, according to what Haru has told me.”</p>
<p>Sousuke nods, catches up with what Makoto glazed over like it was nothing, and pauses mid-bite. “Voluntary?”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, with climate change, they collectively agreed to abstain from cursing and die out naturally. They’re quite sensitive to the flow of the planet.”</p>
<p>“How noble...?” Sousuke can’t bring himself to commit to that bit, but doesn’t want to offend Makoto who seems voluntary extinction-adjacent in his own philosophy. He instead moves on. “Haru knows them? Isn’t that like an enemy?” He finishes delivering the bite as he waits for an answer. Vegetarian omelette. It’s lacking umption without any meat, but meat seems to gross these vampires out and that in turn makes Sousuke feel like he’s a backwards, uncultured caveman for wanting it.</p>
<p>“He occasionally visits with a vampire-friendly pack from Kerala he met out at sea and stayed with for a few years afterward. They update him.”</p>
<p>Too much to unpack. The next bite drags a greasy potato chunk into the mix that Makoto scrutinizes warily. Likely some bacon fat cross-contamination. The eggs, however, he has been neutral about. Must be the sulfur. “Of course he did that. Okay, witches.”</p>
<p>“Oh, prolific. Assimilated and decentralized. Mostly throughout Europe and South America. They’ve lost a lot of knowledge through generational attrition so most aren’t aware of what they are.”</p>
<p>“That’s sort of sad,” Sousuke says.</p>
<p>Makoto visibly hem-haws, head rocking side to side. “Mmm I think a lot of their more… unsavory practices… fell out of favor with the passing of time so it’s not all bad. There was a long period of infighting and violence among witches between those more inclined to do harm indiscriminately and those who wanted to use their power to protect others. Didn’t help that humans kept executing the good ones for a while there. Anyway there are still quite a few powerful bloodlines who are serious about protecting their magics and spells but are also ethically rigorous. It’s not a total loss.”</p>
<p>Sousuke nods. “No more kids in boiling cauldrons. Mildly inconvenient potions and hexes for despots. They’re not very good at that last part, huh?”</p>
<p>“Depends on your perspective.” Makoto shrugs. “How many people have they stopped that you’ll never hear about?”</p>
<p>“Good point.” He secures a large piece of squash between chopsticks and punctuates his next inquiry with it: “Mermaids.”</p>
<p>Makoto laughs. “No, not real so far as I’ve seen. What good would things like human ears and lungs and hair do beneath the sea? The whole thing is silly. I don’t know how anyone believes it.”</p>
<p>“Yeah that, and nothing else at all, sure is the most unbelievable thing I’ve thought about all week.”</p>
<p>His laugh deepens and sends a bounce across his shoulders that Sousuke tracks the path of. “Sorry, sorry. I argue about that one with Haru sometimes, who is sure they must exist.”</p>
<p>“He has to be fuckin’ with you.” Sousuke re-douses his plate in hot sauce, having eaten past the first layer.</p>
<p>The laugh relents to a chuckle but the glow of it doesn’t fade. “Probably.”</p>
<p>Sousuke didn’t expect Makoto to enjoy himself or humor Sousuke’s childish questions. At best he thought it would be a mutually quiet venture out to a dingy little diner while Sousuke shoveled multiple helpings of fuel into his primitive, unevolved maw. Purely a utilitarian exercise to get him through the day without needing to go out for more so Makoto could focus on other things. But the focus is on Sousuke and nowhere to be found is that remorseful, hauntingly sad face Makoto carries with him. It’s nice?</p>
<p>Sousuke knows Makoto feels joy and happiness. They shared it that night in the sea, with egos removed from the picture and the guardrails between their thoughts lowered. It was easy to minimize that experience in the wake of the drama that followed it, but it comes now to him in waves of déja vu as Makoto willfully shares his nuance across the table from him. It’s genuine, it’s the same Makoto as then.</p>
<p>Where, if he wanted to, he could shrug Sousuke off and give him polite vagaries as he has been when pressed and guarded, he shows Sousuke instead his friendliness is both a shield for his own protection as well as a piercing sword. If being stabbed was a good thing. Like if being stabbed with friendliness left wounds of endearment and affinity. Maybe he’s losing the metaphor the longer he thought-smiths his way around outright admitting he’s enjoying Makoto’s company. Of course there’s a bit of a spark if they ignore the bad shit about this situation. Any two complementary individuals stuck in an area together (literally in this case) with a lot to mutually learn about each other will find a spark.</p>
<p>Sousuke hides his thoughts in his omelette and coffee, chasing after the hot sauce heat on his tongue with yet more heat to stave off the consequences of his actions. It’s bad enough Makoto can probably sense his resentment practically liquidating in real time; he’d rather blame the flush on the capsaicin. “Um… fairies.”</p>
<p>Mirth narrows Makoto’s eyes. “What about you, Sousuke?”</p>
<p>“I’m not a fairy. Just a human.”</p>
<p>“A human I don’t know much about.”</p>
<p>Their waiter stops at the table when Sousuke stalls and makes eye contact with him. He tops off Sousuke’s coffee with the requisite pleasantries and departs. There has been no indication anyone here can even see Makoto. Sousuke hopes it doesn’t look like he’s just sitting alone at a table barking off Grimm Brothers lore to himself like a maniac.</p>
<p>He sips and tilts his mug towards Makoto as he sets it down. “Because you didn’t want to.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say that. I only wanted you to tell me if <em>you </em>wanted to and you made it clear until recently you didn’t want to.” He drags the ceramic container of sugar substitute over from the wall-edge of the table and begins to sort the packets. “What I did say is I won’t tell you to do anything. I thought, though, since I’ve talked about myself for some days now when you’ve asked, you might be willing to open up in return.”</p>
<p>“You talk about vampire rules and how you break them,” Sousuke argues. “I don’t really know you. Good sleight of hand, though. Sorry you got stuck with an expert on that technique.”</p>
<p>That finally gets the smug amusement off Makoto’s face, replaced with bewilderment. He pauses his sorting while he processes. “Well.” He recovers and resumes, reverses course from sorting by color to a pink-blue-yellow alternating pattern. “...Fine. You should know, actually.”</p>
<p>He stops there, takes a deep breath, and begins. “I was born in Okayama, I believe, some time around 1500. As well as I could put it together, anyway. I may be off somewhat, and I don’t remember anything about it. Everything was war and death and chaos then. You’d think I’d remember more about being alive but… it turns into a tiny blip after enough time goes by. It barely happened. I wasn’t literate for a long time and never wrote anything down.”</p>
<p>It’s immediately captivating. “What do you remember?”</p>
<p>He furrows his brow. “The bad parts. I met Haru at some point when we were still mortal, on a ship to China. We had been sold to pirates, I believe. I don’t recall <em>wanting </em>to do it anyway. That’s how we met the Fisherman.”</p>
<p>The dark turn in tone and countenance is especially weighty against the colorful and cartoonish diner decor. The name is borderline hoaky and ripped from a B-list horror flick, but Makoto isn’t joking.</p>
<p>“We were so desperate and sick and hungry. He promised us a lot we didn’t have in exchange for work.” Makoto frowns into the aether. “You have to remember, vampires weren’t even a rumor of a thing at the time, where we were. We had no idea.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to defend yourself,” Sousuke says, somewhat baffled. “This already isn’t on a timeline I can begin to comprehend.”</p>
<p>“Right…” He sighs. “He turned me, his First Mate turned Haru, then he used us. Is the abridged version. An entire crew of us, terrorizing coastlines and trade ships. We were a nightmare. We would wipe out ports, entire villages, ransack everything in sight in the dead of night. We rarely turned anyone else. Only slaughtered them.”</p>
<p>...Vampire pirates. The coolest shit made of a child’s most daring dreams and Makoto has made it effortlessly horrifying. There are many grisly pop culture obsessions that, when taken literally, are deranged. Thinking of this, the scale of violence and murder Makoto exposes here, is stomach churning. “You all fed?”</p>
<p>It explains how Makoto earned his scars, the haunted etchings that reflect in his face again now. He only regards Sousuke in his peripheral, too afraid of Sousuke’s judgement as he tells his story.</p>
<p>“We did,” he finally confirms distantly. “And once we realized what we were being asked to do, Haru and I would avoid it when we could but, we didn’t know what was happening to us either. We thought we were dying if we didn’t eat, the pain was so awful. We still tried not to. But Fisherman would force us, threaten us. The crew would watch us and use us against each other as leverage.”</p>
<p>Sousuke sets his forehead to his fingertips and stares into his coffee. He sure did ask for this, mental images of Makoto and Haru taking life, knowing if they didn’t the other might be destroyed for it. Who would they pick, when there was no other choice? How could they make such a decision? “Right. Sure. What the fuck.”</p>
<p>“Over time our crewmates started changing.” The monsters he mentioned on the beach, Sousuke recalls. “We had been doing this for decades by then. It was more and more obvious Haru and I were resisting it. Faking it outright, using chickens or whatever we could find that wasn’t human. It’s not the same scent, and they could see through our excuses. So we planned and waited and planned for ages and ages. Then once Europe started trading with Japan, we knew it was a way out. We ran, far.”</p>
<p>Properly sorted, Makoto sets the sugar packet ramekin to the side. “We stopped feeding, thinking we would die but not knowing what else to do. It was incredibly difficult, but we didn’t die, obviously. But we learned the hard way we would be targets for it if others found us. We were weak. We might work with humans to hunt them, that sort of thing. That, and we knew Fisherman and some of his crew was still out there too. He tracked us down eventually in old Edo and we almost didn’t get away. Haru broke fast after that and restarted his feeding so we would have better defenses should he find us again. So far it’s technically fine, as I told you. But he is different now than he used to be. More distant. Less present.” His jaw sets. “I miss him.”</p>
<p>The hurt this causes Makoto drives a fucking railroad spike into Sousuke’s chest without warning. He winces and quickly obscures himself with another sip of coffee. What’s more, Sousuke mentally notes Makoto hurried over that return to Japan part, and wouldn’t look at him even to the side when he said it. He’s not ready to expose whatever that entailed. “...I see.”</p>
<p>“Anyway.” He smiles again, the strained cover-up one. “It’s not so bad. We’ve done some incredible things, seen some amazing corners of the world since we got away. I’ve never been totally alone. These days I’m slower, unfortunately, and need to stay put. So I just try to stay busy and sharp, and keep my own abilities honed. I read to learn and to stay connected, I help people from a distance where I am able to, I run the bar, I keep the bar under all those illusions, too. Otherwise I would just… sit around? I don’t know. I try to live uncomplicated, and just take my eternity day by day. We’ve lived all over but always come back to Japan eventually. Things have been peaceful for us since we settled here again after the second World War; I guess if patterns hold, soon we would consider leaving again.”</p>
<p>“To stay a moving target,” Sousuke assumes.</p>
<p>“Right. Fisherman is out there somewhere. I would feel it if he weren’t; he created me. Another reason I don’t feed, in case he feels me too, I wouldn’t want to be strong enough to track down. I’m sure we rank high on his list of grievances. He thinks we betrayed him. He’s fully corrupted, and that makes him insatiable and vengeful. That’s what I meant before. The ultimate price for feeding, for all that power, is a total break from humanity and conscientiousness. The vampires you think of are the demons you grew up fearing, in training.”</p>
<p>Sousuke sits back and strokes his jaw as it all sloshes around in his head, a drunken swing between disbelief, because it sounds so far fetched, and a heavy, salient sorrow because at this point, with that sort of weighty subject matter, he’d know if Makoto were making it up. “Holy shit, Makoto.”</p>
<p>“I know. But it’s difficult to explain who I am to you without the context, I guess. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. But I have to be honest with you, too.”</p>
<p>“No— I mean, it was hundreds of years ago and you were forced to do it. It’s horrible that it happened to you.”</p>
<p>Makoto finally makes eye contact again, somewhat recovered. “That’s kind. But all I think about when I remember it are the lives we ruined, and all the generations that would never be because of us. And that’s if I think about it. Truthfully, I don’t much anymore. It’s like it happened to someone else.”</p>
<p>“It did,” Sousuke agrees. “I can’t see you hurting anyone. You wouldn’t.” He believes that too, he feels it with conviction, despite Makoto’s threats and this last ditch effort to keep him incurious.</p>
<p>Makoto sighs. “My point is… I did. And I barely remember it. If we’re going to talk like this, I never want you to forget what I am, Sousuke. I can’t undo those things. And if it’s too terrible for you, I understand that as well.”</p>
<p>“It’s not,” Sousuke says quickly. “I’m not afraid of you. Do I feel afraid?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“So believe me.”</p>
<p>The waiter chooses then to not-so-subtly slip Sousuke the bill. The interruption dispels the lingering tension and helps to reinforce that this is the present, now, and not hundreds of years ago. He pays the bill without advancing more discussion and they move to leave the restaurant.</p>
<p>It’s true that, because it was so long ago, Sousuke is unable to reconcile the Makoto in front of him with the Makoto from then. When he pictures Makoto tearing out someone’s throat, it’s not Makoto’s face he sees. It’s just blank. It’s not right, he should care more. But it’s not totally wrong, either. No one person is built to carry the sins of the past forever. Not especially when there has been genuine atonement.</p>
<p>Maybe he just likes to eat, but Sousuke believes Makoto’s conscious decision to exist in permanent physical torment for a few centuries knowing full well by now it won’t ever end naturally is more than adequate to prove his remorse. It’s not Sousuke’s place, who has been alive for a blink in Makoto’s eyes, to judge him for a life he can’t even temporally comprehend.</p>
<p>“What is it?”</p>
<p>Sousuke blinks and realizes he’s been staring at Makoto while he waits for his receipt.</p>
<p>“Why would you even want to know about me?” he blabs out of nowhere. The question did not pass through any sort of brain to mouth filter that would surely have caught it and held it back from existence. Too late now. He needs to elaborate. “I mean. I don’t take it personally, but I’m not that interesting, if my dismal dating record is anything to go by. A simple guy, I get that a lot. I’m fine with it. But I’m nothing on your timeline. You’ve seen everything. Probably met dozens exactly like me.”</p>
<p>Makoto opens his mouth, closes it, and thinks harder on what would’ve been his kneejerk response. In the meantime, Sousuke gets his receipt. They step into the overcast afternoon and pause beneath the restaurant’s green canvas portico.</p>
<p>Here, Makoto answers him in good faith, in a way Sousuke could not have foreseen. “I know it’s not original to read a lot so don’t take this as deeper than it really is, but… hundreds of times, I’ve finished a book, and decided it was my absolute favorite I’ve ever read. Every time, I’m wrong. There’s always another book out there I haven’t heard of yet, that tells the same story I’ve read a million times in a way I never thought possible once I read it. The world is very big. Every story has something new to say.”</p>
<p>“Jeez,” Sousuke mutters under his breath. “That’s a bit much.” But it is a feigned nonchalance to no avail, as Makoto feels the electrified response jittering beneath his skin that Sousuke doesn’t vocalize.</p>
<p>“For what it’s worth, I think you are interesting.” Smiling, smiling. Always smiling. It means more the deeper Sousuke digs. “I wouldn’t tell you any of this if I didn’t, hell bond or no hell bond.”</p>
<p>“...Fair enough.”</p>
<p>Makoto is about to say something else, but looks past Sousuke’s shoulder and aborts the idea. A telltale shimmer; Makoto masks himself from whoever is behind them. A chill crawls up Sousuke’s re-exposed arms, there are eyes on him again.</p>
<p>“Sousuke?”</p>
<p>Goddamn these small towns.</p>
<p>To his credit, Kazuma does not immediately decapitate him, and that’s commendable. Where did Sousuke’s phone even end up? He hasn’t thought about it once. Or the fact that he has another shift today. Troubling. “Kazuma. Hey. Sorry I haven’t got back to you.”</p>
<p>The shock wears off and Kazuma skips over pissed off and goes straight for soul-crushing disappointment. “I was going to call the police if I didn’t hear from you today. No one knows where you’ve been. And then I just run into you on the street on my way to the bank like everything’s fine? What happened? Where are you sleeping?”</p>
<p>He has nothing. No viable excuse, no room to tell even a portion of the truth. Kazuma wouldn’t believe him, and obviously now more than before Makoto’s secrecy is paramount. All he has is a lie by omission, and it will hurt both of them. “I… I can’t be there right now. That’s all I can say. I need more time. Fire me if you need to, I get it.”</p>
<p>Kazuma’s sigh is exasperated and loud. “Jesus, Sousuke! This is a shitty spot to put me in. I don’t want to do that to you. I need you, I can’t run that place alone.”</p>
<p>“You have to.”</p>
<p>“Why? Why can’t you talk to me? You could always talk to me!” Classic Kazuma. The confidant Kazuma. Younger Sousuke could tell him anything and Kazuma would know what to say. Kazuma still prides himself on it, on being the one person Sousuke opens up to, even if he isn’t as available to Sousuke as he used to be. To do this to him is deeply personal, permanently damaging, and Sousuke couldn’t feel worse about having to do it.</p>
<p>“Excuse me, Kazuma, is it?”</p>
<p>Makoto is then standing at Sousuke’s side, an open greeting in his expression. Sousuke knows what’s about to happen and, as much as he will hate himself later for it, does not stop it.</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah?” That Kazuma doesn’t look annoyed implies Makoto is already working.</p>
<p>He goes right in. The same sort of overbearing specificity that he used on Sousuke when they met. “You care so much about Sousuke. I really understand that. So I want you to know he’s all right, and that he also cares about you. Please get the help you need for now and don’t feel bad for needing it. He’s going to come back, I promise. We all need breaks sometimes, right?”</p>
<p>Kazuma regards Sousuke with more affection and heart than Sousuke’s received from the cumulative total of anyone in the last decade, including Kazuma himself. One of those things he wouldn’t have noticed if it never came to a head like this, an emptiness he would have only vaguely felt gnawing at him as more years dragged on. Kazuma gives a shit about him, though it’s harder to see these days, and that still matters more than Sousuke has words for.</p>
<p>“Of course. When you’re ready, Sou, you know I’m here.” He’s a little confused, but resolute, and claps Sousuke on the shoulder, his stalky arm always so heavy no matter how tall and strong Sousuke’s grown. “I hope you get what you need out of some time for yourself.”</p>
<p>Sousuke swallows any rogue waver trying to make its way into his voice. “I will.”</p>
<p>Kazuma smiles, and leaves.</p>
<p>“Don’t do that again,” warns Sousuke as he watches Kazuma walk away.</p>
<p>Makoto turns to him, an apology ready to fire. “I—”</p>
<p>“<em>But</em> thanks for doing it.” Kazuma disappears around a corner at the end of the block. “He was all I had for a while. I can’t ruin that but I almost had to.”</p>
<p>“Who do you have now?”</p>
<p>The vacant street corner slowly blurs out of focus. Where Sousuke expected an automatic response, he has fallen silent. It’s a strangely recursive question to ask, and stops Sousuke’s internal momentum in its tracks. Sousuke has been making that claim to himself for years, never having stopped to interrogate its validity. At least he had Kazuma, and now that he doesn’t as much as he used to, at least he isn’t alone… right? Casually, Makoto found a bug in his code and ruthlessly exploited it, bringing the whole system down.</p>
<p>Something in him shifts, a fault line under pressure gives. That dating apps and the solo back kitchen shifts and the home that never was and the solitary refuge of his mind he could always say he preferred until it wasn’t all his anymore and Makoto could see it wasn’t true so now he’s asking point blank but still polite: Sousuke Yamazaki are you lying?</p>
<p>“... No one.” He laughs a bitter beat. “There isn’t anyone else.”</p>
<p>“Well there’s me today,” Makoto offers frankly, no pity. “Until we figure out a way to get you your life back. I’ve been thinking we could try—”</p>
<p>“<em>No</em>.” The suggestion is a fork scraping a plate. Sousuke closes his eyes and breathes and tries again without the bark. “No. But, if you have the time, I want to go see someone.”</p>
<p>“Oh, sure. I can wait nearby.”</p>
<p>Sousuke sighs. “<em>With</em> you.” He takes stock of where they are and tries to remember the way. There’s a directionally-challenged reason he visits the same places over and over and rarely ventures off track. There is also no good reason that this place is not one of those places.</p>
<p>It does come to him eventually as he recalls and retraces his last visit, years ago. Ultimately, even he can’t forget where this place is, even when he wants to.</p>
<hr/>
<p>It takes a train, which Makoto isn’t pleased with, but ultimately concedes to.</p>
<p>The stone is one among hundreds in its area, all facing east, all exactly the same. There are half-wilted flowers in its vase. Kazuma was here recently, making Sousuke feel guiltier, something he was sure couldn't be possible. He adds his generic white-petaled purchase to the vase without removing the old offering, what had been a brilliant yellow. Bad etiquette, but he blew that pretense a few years ago when he stopped visiting.</p>
<p>Makoto bends at the waist to read the list of names etched into the stone tablet. “Yamazaki. Your father?”</p>
<p>“Yup. Second to last.” His words catch in his throat. An hour ago when he made the decision to come out here on a lark, it made sense. Now, he’s not sure what he hoped to accomplish by bringing Makoto when he didn’t ever visit when he could be alone.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.” He straightens. “What happened?”</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>“Heart attack about… twenty years ago? I didn’t know him that well. He was already old when I was born.”</p>
<p>“And your mother?”</p>
<p>Sousuke shrugs. “No idea. They didn’t stay together long. She left for Tokyo shortly after she had me. He didn’t talk about her because I don’t think he knew her. I think I was just a… whoops.”</p>
<p>Makoto hums. “So Kazuma raised you?”</p>
<p>“Yeah more or less. He was just a kid too, though. His mom is taking care of <em>her </em>mom in uh… Kyoto, I think. His dad was around too but he had the restaurant when it was still making money so he was busy. Then he kicked it and Kazuma took that over. I was in high school by then. Went to Tokyo for university with Sei but didn’t finish. He pushed me into going with him but I just never found anything I felt very strongly about. Sei was a ranked swimmer and did that for a few. I was getting to be a pretty good swimmer but Sei always wanted to boss me around, always a nitpicky coach and never just… a friend? A teammate? I’d’ve taken a rival even. But he never saw me as his equal in anything. So I got tired of it and stopped. By then I was failing anyway because without the pool I was bored so I came back and started working instead. That’s basically where I’ve been since.”</p>
<p>“I see,” Makoto says. “It doesn’t sound like any of it bothers you?”</p>
<p>“Nah. It doesn’t. I had a happy childhood. I just never found anything that felt like it was what I was meant to do. I didn’t have parents putting me in sports or clubs and Kazuma was so close to me in age that I just bothered him instead of making my own friends. He didn’t have the heart to tell me to fuck off.” Sousuke laughs when he remembers the few times he clearly wanted to. “Can’t be mean to little orphaned loners, that’s just too low.”</p>
<p>The wind picks up and Makoto’s chuckle is low beneath its whistle. “You’re terrible to make me laugh at things like that.”</p>
<p>He can’t help his smirk. “At least I got jokes, you could use a laugh.”</p>
<p>“And maybe you could use a friend, hmm?”</p>
<p>He says it so easy going, so outright, that Sousuke almost misses the way Makoto’s shoulders tense and his breath quickens as he does. He’s afraid. Five hundred years old, with more wisdom, more experience with every facet of humanity than Sousuke could ever quantify, and he’s afraid of some average guy’s rejection.</p>
<p>Sousuke has to laugh, both at the absurdity of it and how obvious the answer has become without him realizing it in such short order. The magic that happens when he can pull his head out of his ass for a few minutes never ceases to mystify him. “Why the fuck not, right?”</p>
<p>“Mm. I’m glad.”</p>
<p>And he is. Sousuke feels the chill the wind brought with it chased out of his core by a warm wellspring. The prospect of sharing pain and fear and other miseries until Soususke died was a tragedy. Sharing this, though…</p>
<p>“Thanks for coming with me. Maybe I was feeling guilty about never visiting.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for trusting me with it.” A long pause. “I hate to ask this of you but would you consider returning home soon? We can come back tomorrow, if you like.”</p>
<p>Sousuke casts a long glance to the side to see Makoto adjusting his scarf up higher around his neck. Overhead, the clouds are breaking up, revealing slivers of a low, mid-afternoon sun. “The sun?” He catches sight of a few crosses etched into some of the stones in the yard and wonders if those hurt too.</p>
<p>“Just getting ah, a little uncomfortable. Nothing major.”</p>
<p>“Like I buy that.” He takes one last look at the family grave. “I did what I came here to do, whatever that was.</p>
<p>Though he is “uncomfortable”, Makoto waits for Sousuke to have his closing thoughts and lead the way back. They keep to themselves all the way into town, and on the walk from the station back to the house. When they’re in sync like this, everything feels all right. Sousuke isn’t irritated or emotionally disheveled. He understands in the back of his mind that this symbiosis and tranquility is a reward for obedience; he is near his vampire and poised to serve, and Makoto is tending to his familiar so that he is healthy enough to do so. It is strange and unsettling that their newly brokered friendship is both of their own volition and an unspoken surrender to their curse.</p>
<p>They still have not come up with an answer to the existential question at the center of all of this: how can they ever find a way to be apart and live their own lives? Allowing for a relationship, moving closer and learning about each other, is moving in the totally wrong direction. With a creeping numbness, Sousuke realizes it stands to reason that this is the wanted trajectory the curse itself abides. Literally, Stockholm Syndrome, insofar as the familiar eventually doesn’t even <em>want</em> freedom from servitude. The devil must be as fallible as man; hell magic taking the path of least resistance would make the most sense.</p>
<p>Hell, he already moved in with him and ignored the obvious reality that it could never be just one night, not under these conditions. There’s no one to turn to <em>but</em> Makoto. And oh, is Sousuke turning to him.</p>
<p>He sighs to himself as they ascend the stairs to Makoto’s home. Could be worse. Makoto could be old and pointy and mean and wear a stupid cape and actually treat him like a servant. Instead he’s… well, the opposite of all that. Shaggy in a good way. Warm in personality and appearance where he lacks it in… circulation? No cape. Tall like a vampire caricature, but not gangly. Loose and textured hair, not all weirdly slicked back and one note. Immortality struck and froze him in time at a pleasantly lean and vivacious stage of life. Apparent even through eight layers of polyester knit blend. This is a thought chain feeding directly into a dumpster fire and yet he cannot get it under control.</p>
<p>“You did get cold.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>At the door, Makoto draws a circle in the air around Sousuke’s face from a distance. “You’re red.”</p>
<p>“Worry about yourself,” he mutters, because Makoto does nothing to hide the tease in his voice that reveals he knows the flush has nothing to do with the weather.</p>
<p>Inside the darkened home, Makoto hangs his coat and scarf and excuses himself in what Sousuke would consider a hurry, for him. Not sure what to do with himself, he digs his half-charged phone out from beneath a pile of clothes and plants himself in front of the TV in the living room. It is surprising Makoto owns TV, somehow, but not as surprising as the jail-broken Kodi-loaded stick that boots up and offers the world’s wealth of entertainment to him within thirty seconds of starting up. The evidence confirms, between the off-the-books alcohol distribution and the illegal entertainment streaming, that Makoto truly does have origins in piracy.</p>
<p><em>did u seriously not top off my tank</em>, Sei sent this morning. And nothing else. Despite the fact that Kazuma couldn’t have known Sousuke was missing all night unless he had reached out to Sei, who clearly was not concerned. He leaves that on read.</p>
<p>Then there are all those Kazuma texts and missed calls which he hurriedly dismisses and does not look at.</p>
<p>And finally a spam text from an unknown number asking: <em>lonely? hungry area singles are looking for you! ;)</em></p>
<p>Ever vanilla in his personal preferences for film and television, Sousuke sifts through another country’s Netflix catalogue for something boring to pass the time. He doesn’t make it too far into the “fight the power” action subgenre when Makoto rejoins him, dressed down in a gray long sleeve top and sweats. A glance at his phone again says it’s past when Makoto would be at his bar.</p>
<p>“The Last Drop?”</p>
<p>“Oh… hm. You’re very observant. No, I think I pushed myself a little too far today.”</p>
<p>Rationally, Sousuke assumes he means the daylight fatigued him. He did say it still has some effect. But what he sees out of the corner of his eye when Makoto sits on the opposite side of the sofa and leans forward to adjust his pant leg where it has bunched up is more than fatigue.</p>
<p>Sousuke turns and looks directly at Makoto’s hand. “You’re burned.”</p>
<p>He responds by sitting back and pulling the cuff down over the back of his hand, a dry friction which visibly pains him. “I’m not sure why it happened. I’ve been out longer before.”</p>
<p>From his hand, Sousuke walks his gaze up Makoto’s arm and to his face. The burn scales up his neck and over his cheeks. Sousuke’s never seen anything like it. It’s dry and agitated and dusty, reminiscent of spent charcoal. Makoto is struggling to hide how painful it is; the slightest shift carves a grimace into his face.</p>
<p>“I— what do I do?”</p>
<p>“Nothing, it’s all right. It comes on like a sudden sunburn and then starts to heal.” He strains a smile. “Just worse than I’ve had in a while so it may take a few hours.”</p>
<p>“Shit. That shirt—” No, Sousuke, don't tell him to strip. Idiot. “I can leave so you can heal up in private?”</p>
<p>“I think… if it’s not too upsetting for you to see it… it’ll heal faster if you’re here.” His eyes slip shut and he tilts his head up against the back of the couch. He radiates misery. His hand forms a fist at his side, pulling the burned skin on the back taught until it cracks. “If you don’t mind.”</p>
<p>“Stop being so fucking polite. I’m not going anywhere in that case.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.” He falls quiet. Sousuke doesn’t dare shift for fear of disturbing the weight distribution on the sofa. “It’s funny… I think by having you around, it serves as a sort of energy source when we’re not working against each other… which would mean I’m stronger, but…”</p>
<p>“Also means you’d be more sensitive to the consequences.”</p>
<p>“Right. I wouldn’t have known.”</p>
<p>Because he’s never had a familiar to benefit from, and he has grown accustomed to his weakened state and its limitations. He couldn’t have anticipated how it would change him. At least he didn’t intentionally put himself in danger just for Sousuke’s sake, a situation that would call for a drastically different conversation.</p>
<p>Makoto’s breathing gradually stunts to quick, shallow puffs. It is the only sound in the room, dredging up strange questions for Sousuke to pick through. Why does he breathe at all, with no need for the life it perpetuates? Likely the same reason he still feels pain and hunger and exhaustion. Still human despite his distancing from the term, and so still beholden to suffering. So far as Sousuke can tell, suffering apart from survival is what makes a human. Maybe, then, like a human, he still needs… Sousuke swallows something anxious threatening to be heard and shoves it into a black box somewhere else. Humans need comfort.</p>
<p>“Will you let me try something?”</p>
<p>Without lowering his head or opening his eyes, Makoto answers. “Okay.”</p>
<p>He knows if he explains it, Makoto will reject it on its face, so he opts to stay vague. Carefully, Sousuke lifts himself and moves down the couch to the center cushion, then pivots so he faces Makoto, left leg folded under himself and his right foot planted on the floor. He reaches for Makoto’s clenched fist, with all the trepidation one would use to pet a dog with a history of biting, and lays his hand over the back of it where it is covered by his sleeve.</p>
<p>Whatever Makoto thought Sousuke would try, this wasn’t it. Makoto inhales sharply, jerks his hand away from him, and holds it to his chest. He’s looking head on and rigid in a snap, coiled in posture, and his typically bright green eyes have gone dark beneath a knit brow. “Don’t touch me.”</p>
<p>It’s a command, the first time Makoto has used one on him directly. Immediately, Sousuke puts his hands up in front of himself like a caught robber. Reflexive, unconscious movement as when one touches a hot stove top. Unnerving. “Okay. Sorry.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t budge. “Why did you do that?”</p>
<p>Stinging. Sousuke would rather Makoto threaten to drain his blood again; that wasn’t as life-threatening as this feels. “I thought if proximity helped, direct contact would help more.” The defensive posture eases. “That’s all. I swear. I’m sorry, I should’ve been more specific.”</p>
<p>“Yes, you should’ve.” Makoto looks down at his hand as he moves it away from his chest.</p>
<p>“I just want to help.” Sousuke lowers his arms, sensing the immediate danger of being rent from this dimension has passed. “Because I want to, not because I’m compelled to.”</p>
<p>Makoto flexes his hand and winces away from it. Sousuke thinks that’s the end of it, and he’ll resume his subtle writhing on the couch until it all clears up. But instead after some time to think, Makoto gingerly tugs the sleeve up and off the back of his hand.</p>
<p>“That was… an overreaction.” He holds his arm out. “You can try it.”</p>
<p>Sousuke nods, too afraid to speak and upset him again. This time, he’s more confident in intent and movement, using both hands to cover both the top and bottom of Makoto’s. The texture of his burn feels worse than it looks somehow; it really is hard like the charcoal it appears to be. It’s <em>carbon</em>; surface patches of him literally did combust.</p>
<p>He shudders when he pictures the same injury on just a portion of himself, much less all over. For Makoto to even admit to this, it must be agonizing. He more completely flattens his palm over the back of Makoto’s hand, molding the softer cup of it to make full contact. Where Makoto is burned, the injury is scalding hot. Where he is not, on the other side of his hand where their palms meet, he is that eerie, clammy cold.</p>
<p>After some time, Makoto’s shallow breathing hasn’t slowed, and nothing seems to be happening. Sousuke can’t stop thinking about what he feels, it is so alien and every alarm in the primitive corners of his mind are in a state of meltdown he struggles to override. He should not be touching anything this hot or this dead. The sensory input is overwhelming… and exactly the problem.</p>
<p>Where was he, when they shared one mind? Did he think about the temperature of the sea in relation to his own skin? The pulverizing pressure of the depths on his bones? No, he had no body to worry about. When he heard Makoto’s laugh, wasn’t it also his own? They are cursed to share their suffering. But hell is not perfect. They can share more than that. Makoto is more than that.</p>
<p>Sousuke doesn’t resist the repulsion reverberating through him; instead he lets it pass through. It’s there, it’s fine. He’s still holding on. He holds on, though, the same way he imagines Makoto holds onto one of his new favorite books after he closes the back cover. Reverently and firm, and within that moment is that immediately bittersweet twinge that something so transformative can also be over, something as big as an entire universe can stay contained between his palms. A cover’s rough texture and inflexibility speaks to its resilience, that the paper enshrining the story is cold does not mean it is devoid of life, quite the contrary. On dead wood, dead flesh, life goes on.</p>
<p>Sousuke holds Makoto’s hand, and he is intentionally awed by his story, his impossible life, his capacity for rage and joy and nervous little jitters after everything horrible and all the ravages of time should have eroded these things from him. He is awed by it and as Haru showed him is possible, Sousuke moves outside his boundaries. Sousuke holds Makoto’s hand between his palms and it is warm and soft and conductive with... life.</p>
<p>When Sousuke remembers where he is and dares to wonder if what he’s holding is real, he looks to Makoto for affirmation. But Makoto hasn’t been looking down where they’re joined, he’s been staring at Sousuke. His breathing has evened out, the tension bunching him up at the edges and pulling his tendons into steel cables is gone. Neither say a word.</p>
<p>Slowly, Sousuke lifts Makoto’s hand upward from the bottom and twists around so their palms are a flush panel between them. Incomprehensible is the very real body heat emanating from Makoto’s hand. The way Makoto moves his focus to the back of his hand confirms what Sousuke felt; the burn is gone without a trace. All that is there now that shouldn’t be is the smallest, barely perceptible thrum of a pulse. Sousuke knows it isn’t his own, as his is a sledgehammer on a brick wall while Makoto’s is a water droplet falling from a leaf.</p>
<p>And then it fades.</p>
<p>The warmth recedes from Makoto’s fingertips, pooling what remains in his palm. It doesn’t flicker or rebound in protest, only weakly snuffs out, a candle all out of wick and wax.</p>
<p>Sousuke’s chest tightens in witness of Makoto’s plummet from suspended wonderment to crushing devastation. His green eyes gloss over, his expression pinches and presses, all as the chill seeps in and separates them once more.</p>
<p>The television shut off automatically. The falling dusk paints the dreary room an even darker, dustier gray.</p>
<p>“...Makoto.” He’s not sure if it carries over their hands, or what he planned to say after it.</p>
<p>“How did you do that?” A whisper whose lapping waters threaten to churn into a wave of grief. </p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>Makoto pulls his hand back with some difficulty against a stubborn hope keeping it there and cradles it in his lap. The rest of him is still burned in patches, but much of the blackened carbon is less so. It’s flesh again, if broken and parched.</p>
<p>In profile, Makoto worries at his bottom lip and stares somewhere into the darkest corner of the room. Up his neck and over his cheeks, his burn is still acute and the skin deadened and dry. A woozy exhaustion hangs in chains around Sousuke’s neck, but maybe he still could… “I can—”</p>
<p>Makoto’s response is a cracked whip: “No.”</p>
<p>“Okay.” A door slammed shut in his face.</p>
<p>“I’d like to be alone now, if that’s all right.”</p>
<p>The stun is disorienting, but not unexpected. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll uh…” He clears his throat and paws around the table in the final suggestion of light for his phone. “I’ll be in my— your spare room.”</p>
<p>He retreats to the futon where an insurmountable exhaustion quickly drags him into a heavy sleep. At his back, he’s left behind a statue-still Makoto in the lonesome shroud of encroaching darkness.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. that's gonna leave a mark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>let's earn some tags</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sousuke lays atop a flat, parched wasteland. He has given up looking for anyone.</p>
<p>The earth beneath him moves in twitches and spasms. He can’t lift any limbs. He can’t lift his head. Little pinches, twisting tugs, pull at him all over. Overhead, a blood orange sun beats down through a dusty haze.</p>
<p>Breathing is a struggle. There is sand in his throat. His tongue is atrophied. He is nearly numb from the neck down.</p>
<p>A black shadow cuts off the sun, then retreats.</p>
<p>A wing.</p>
<p>Sousuke looks down as far as he can without the ability to turn his head. His eyes sting in their sockets. Too dry.</p>
<p>But what he sees is wet; a glistening, red arch above his chest that sails and splatters into the thirsty dirt. His. It’s his. A bubbling horror travels in jagged angles up his brain stem. It comes into focus, a dozen frenzied vultures, with faces of faces, gnash and screech and peck and tear from one hundred hungry mouths.</p>
<p>Bits and pieces tear between them in tandem with each little jostle and pop. The earth is not twitching, it is him. There are no tremors in the dirt, it is him. He can’t lift his limbs, his head, because they are perched on him and pinning him down as they fight over his flesh and blood and tendon and muscle. When all that’s gone, will they fight over the bones and sinew? Who gets his heart?</p>
<p>A rumbling chuckle shakes up his chest and spills from his cracked lips. It takes over his whole body, infects him with hysteria. It’s the funniest fucking joke he’s ever made. Too bad they’re all too busy ripping him apart to appreciate it. His laugh drowns out the feast, distracts from the desecration of his body, sings a song into the tortured air.</p>
<p>The fear dissipates. There is only his defiance and his beating heart. That’s better.</p>
<p>He’d rather go out laughing.</p>
<p>Sousuke awakens this time in a blind panic.</p>
<p>He tangles and contorts beneath his blanket, scrambling backwards to escape its hold and heat. Arms free, he pats down the front of his torso and legs with trembling hands. He is shocked to find himself whole and uneaten, so sure and foregone was his fate a moment ago. He throws his head back and sobs a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>It’s getting weird.</p>
<p>Makoto doesn’t come bursting through the door at Sousuke’s presumedly detectable struggle. That’s good, he wouldn’t want to explain this fucked up shit and have Makoto thinking he had anything to do with it. The stress of all this sudden life upheaval is manifesting in strange ways.</p>
<p>Phone check: one in the morning. He leans to the side where his charger is plugged into the wall and gets it connected. He’s parched and groggy and hungry yet again. Makoto’s going to have to come with him to a convenience store or order him to go get snacks or something. Irritating.</p>
<p>He gets to his feet and goes to the door, but something subconscious stays his hand from opening it. Belatedly, he hears it. A low conversation happening in the living room. Definitely Makoto, whose voice is too tenor to go unheard. The other, muddy and marbly by contrast, must be Haru. None of Makoto’s cloaking is present; Sousuke can make out words. Not exactly what, but enough to know it’s about him.</p>
<p>It’s wrong, but he slides the door open a crack, turns his ear to the gap, and listens.</p>
<p>“—dangerous.” Haru.</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Then why, Makoto? After all this, why put yourself at risk?”</p>
<p>A long silence. “He helped me.”</p>
<p>“He can only hurt you. That’s all that happens, one way or another.”</p>
<p>There is of course no way Haru is referring to Sousuke, the boring restaurant employee from Iwatobi who has been convinced at least once that malfeasance committed against him was <em>his</em> fault, actually, so dedicated is he to not harming people he cares about to his own detriment. Not to mention, literally, he cannot hurt Makoto without killing himself.</p>
<p>“Is it so bad?” Makoto’s laugh is wry. “I won’t turn him. I won’t consume him. He’ll die as any mortal would.”</p>
<p>Ah. Okay, it’s him.</p>
<p>“And leave you with a wound you can’t fix. You can’t take on any more hunger.” Haru sighs. “You’re the one who said you wouldn’t get close.”</p>
<p>“I haven’t.”</p>
<p>“You’re lying.” Haru is worried, not angry, despite his sharp tone. “It’s been a week and the familiar’s bond is already strong enough he could help you heal? You want the bond.”</p>
<p>“We’ve been cordial because we <em>have</em> to be. You saw what was happening when we tried to avoid each other. Of course we would bond more.” It’s exactly how Sousuke reasoned it, sure, but it still somehow serves as a rebuke. It wasn’t just cordiality, dammit. “It was a fluke. He doesn’t even know how he did it.”</p>
<p>“Yes, he does. Some part of him does, or else he wouldn’t have been able to.”</p>
<p>“And who taught him how to see us like that?” Makoto snaps. “You, showing off.”</p>
<p>“It was supposed to deter him. You wanted him to think we were monsters. <em>You </em>did. So I showed him a monster, for you.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want him to think that anymore.” It didn’t work for long, anyway. “I— He’s—”</p>
<p>“You’re playing with a fire you can’t afford to be burned by.” Sousuke should’ve stopped listening by now, but there are answers here to questions he hasn’t figured out how to form yet. “If you continue to get close to him, you will <em>consume </em>him—”</p>
<p>“I will <em>never</em> do that, Haru.” Adamant, angry even.</p>
<p>Consume? As in eat? Feed on him? Haru says it as if there is some situation where Makoto would, even as he insists he wouldn’t.</p>
<p>“<em>If</em> you did, you would ascend.”</p>
<p>“I know that.”</p>
<p>“Consuming a familiar is a relief from everything, forever. Satiety you’ve never known. You can’t say never, not when you’re this hungry. You’ve never bonded with a familiar before, you have no idea what it will do to you. You have no idea about—”</p>
<p><em>“Never,”</em> Makoto reiterates, cutting him off again. “Not him. Not ever. He’s in this mess because of me. And he’s been nothing but kind and forgiving. I won’t win his trust and friendship only to betray him for it. I felt normal, Haru. I felt <em>okay.</em> How could you say that to me, when you know how desperately I want to be mortal again?”</p>
<p>Debatable he’s been kind and forgiving the whole time. But the zing of Sousuke’s internal snark thins the longer he listens. Makoto’s earnestness when he talks about Sousuke is humbling, and terrifying, and rocks his little black box of complicated ideas closer to a table’s edge. He’s in danger of no longer being a simple guy should it fall and shatter.</p>
<p>“You could swim with me, and have the best of both worlds. You could enjoy your life, your immortality. You could get away from all of these mortals, including him, and do more with less. He couldn’t hurt you. You could rest again.”</p>
<p>The revelation is sobering. Makoto said he would see what happened with his hunger, he would be okay with wasting away should it be possible. Passively over it, the whole vampire thing, which alarmed Sousuke but didn’t seem like it could happen. Just morbidly wishful thinking.</p>
<p>But actively wanting mortality is different. He <em>wants </em>to be mortal. He wants an expiration date, a human fear of dying. He would choose to take the exit from the center row of the planet’s past, present and future. Sure Sousuke’s thought about it, and living forever would suck. Everyone you love would just keep dying. But Makoto’s situation isn’t the same, he’s not even alone in it, the detriment doesn’t apply to him. He only needs to find a way to feed to make it worth it. Haru’s right; the grass of shared immortality is objectively greener than mortality’s endless pain and misery.</p>
<p>“And look what it’s doing to you. Every day you are further away. You used to want mortality again, too. Now the idea repulses you.”</p>
<p>“Don’t put words in my mouth. I accepted what wouldn’t happen. I moved on. That’s what you do when you can’t win the hand you’re dealt.”</p>
<p>“That’s not ever who you were before.”</p>
<p>“It’s who I am now. It's freedom, Makoto. I can defend myself. I don’t worry about if the mortals will like me. I don’t worry about if I’m getting too close to someone I’ll kill one day. I don’t have to care about their wars or their arguments. The world is so much bigger than them.”</p>
<p>“You will corrupt eventually, the more you sever yourself from humanity.”</p>
<p>Sharp now. “Then so be it. I promise I am not the one in danger of corrupting here.”</p>
<p>It’s decisive. Sousuke doesn’t expect Makoto to argue with a proverbial wall and he doesn’t. The charge lacing Haru’s declaration tells Sousuke this is new territory for a tired argument. Haru finally copped to an unsaid truth and obliterated any remaining benefits of a doubt Makoto may have harbored.</p>
<p>Sousuke closes the door. In the heat of the moment, it’s a deluge of information travelling in one ear and out the other, more or less. Now though he is forced to sit with it and wonder if it were all information he was better off not knowing.</p>
<p>He gives it a half hour before he messes his fingers through his hair to dishevel it and rubs his eyes to redness for a little post-sleep authentic puff. For added effect, he audibly yawns on his way to the living room and makes a show of squinting at Haru who he should not expect to see.</p>
<p>In the lamp light, Sousuke sees Makoto is mostly recovered, sitting backwards in one of his kitchen table chairs. On his cheeks remains some dry spots, but nothing stark. Makoto only partially meets his gaze, quickly redirecting Sousuke’s attention to the kitchen counter. There are grocery bags stamped with smiley faces. “I went out and got you food and water while you were sleeping.”</p>
<p>And the nightmare came back. Does it only happen when Makoto isn’t around? “Should I be afraid of what you determined edible?”</p>
<p>Makoto shrugs. “I stuck to things labelled plain or beef flavored. Non-dairy.”</p>
<p>“Good enough.” Hopefully that sounds coolly aloof and unimpressed, because someone remembering his uncompromising allergy for once secretly chokes him up and he doesn’t want to explain that in front of Haru.</p>
<p>“Do you feel like a prisoner yet?” Haru asks, earning the ire of Makoto’s pressed lips. He’s curled up on the couch and peering at him over the back. “He goes and gets you snacks today, dresses you up tomorrow?”</p>
<p>Sousuke crosses the room and digs out a few jerky sticks poking out through the opening of the shopping bag. “Don’t be jealous, Haru.”</p>
<p>He rolls his eyes. “Why would I be?”</p>
<p>“Because I,” Sousuke explains through his teeth as he tears off the plastic top bit with them, “can survive off toxic sludge from a 7/11 down the block, and you, my friend, must swim in distant oceans for briny fish blood. I would be jealous of me, in your position.”</p>
<p>“I’m not your friend.”</p>
<p>He bites off a piece of the stick he squeezes through the packaging like an ice pop. “Your loss.”</p>
<p>“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Haru snaps. “Disgusting.” He turns around, slips off the couch, and stands. “I’m leaving.”</p>
<p>It’s the little victories. Sousuke grabs a bottle of water next, and makes short work of half of it in one swig. “So soon?”</p>
<p>“If I have to sit here and smell that while you chew it like cud, yes.” He rounds the couch donned in his typical dark wash jeans and t-shirt. No impending winter will deter this guy from at least fitting in with a crowd.</p>
<p>“You started it.”</p>
<p>“I was already leaving anyway. I’ve been here for hours, which you would know if you hadn’t been sleeping.” Haru’s shadow spreads around his feet.</p>
<p>“Nice burn, you got me. Needing to sleep like a dweeb. Anyway are you too cool for doors?”</p>
<p>Makoto cuts them off before Haru can fully form the murderous thought unfolding in his eyes. “Happy hunting, Haru. Are you available tomorrow? I miss your music.”</p>
<p>He ignores Sousuke as designed and nods. “I’ll play tomorrow night, if you open up.”</p>
<p>“I will.” Makoto smiles his goodbye. Despite their argument, he is still fond of his friend. Sousuke wouldn’t smile in Makoto’s position.</p>
<p>Haru responds with a look of his own that Sousuke is not trained to read, then glances at him briefly and blankly. His shadow swallows him, and Haru, alongside much of the room’s darkness, blinks away.</p>
<p>It’s already normalized. Sousuke hardly registers that void-walking is not a normal way to travel. “You look better,” Sousuke offers, switching to eating his snacks like a normal person not raised by wolves.</p>
<p>“Thank you. I feel better.”</p>
<p>The air stuffs up quickly. It’s awkward, with Makoto fretting over what happened earlier and Sousuke way past that and thinking about what he heard. The adult thing to do is to fess up and talk about it and prevent any misunderstandings or assumptions going forward. This especially would benefit Sousuke, who would love to learn more about Makoto growing so attached he may have to eventually kill Sousuke. That sure is an important thing he should get out in the open.</p>
<p>Fine. After he eats. One thing at a time. “You sticking around? Can we talk after I get some food?”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Makoto answers. “I don’t have much to do if I’m not running the bar.” It’s a self-deprecating joke, but it falls flat under the worry in his voice and simply becomes a statement.</p>
<p>“Gonna get some air, then.” He welcomes the quiet, frigid night after an evening this tense.</p>
<p>“Don’t mind the cats.”</p>
<p>Sousuke waves that detail off. He stops by his things and retrieves a heavy coat mismatched in quality and jeuge to his lazy loungewear underneath and from another pile, a pair of ratty slip-on shoes. Tomorrow he will sort all of this into where it would go if he were living here, as he undoubtedly will need to.</p>
<p>Beef jerky and a packet of potato chips in hand, he lets himself out onto Makoto’s back porch and plops down on the deck. Makoto has since retreated to his room once more, leaving Sousuke some privacy, he supposes. His body is going to revolt soon if he doesn’t get back to eating regularly and well. He is sure a skin breakout is just around the corner and his arguably nice kitchen-chiseled arms are at risk without use and nutrition. Just another thing to add to the list of shit to think about, no big deal.</p>
<p>This is the simplicity he needed in search for his center before broaching the topic of eating friends. Just a one-dimensional man with only a few thoughts and his preservative-soaked meat, his salted deep-fried potatoes, and the simple pleasure of taking a fake drag off a beef jerky cigarette and exhaling fake smoke rings, puffed out into the night in little clouds of moonlit condensation.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s the theoretical, far-off nature of it all, but Sousuke hasn’t asked himself how he plans to get out of his curse since hearing the new information that should definitely prompt himself to ask anew. Haru was right, he determined, and Haru has accepted his lot. Has Sousuke accepted his?</p>
<p>Instead he thinks about the other options. Makoto can kill him. Not ideal.</p>
<p>Makoto can turn him.</p>
<p>His mind is blank in response. That’s interesting. He expected an emphatically thought <em>fuck no</em> or a gut-cramping laugh. No, only the mental equivalent of <em>...go on. </em></p>
<p>He shakes his head. And eat fish blood exclusively then eventually corrupt and turn into a murderous demon? No thanks. But… it’s a way out of hurting Makoto, for a while at least. For long enough, maybe, to find a way to mortalize him? To make his immortality feel more fulfilled? It sounds so stupid and yet it’s the only thing that would fix a good number of these short-term concerns.</p>
<p>Kazuma wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Sei is kind of a shitty friend anyway, no matter how many times Sousuke excuses his behavior as just “being Sei”. He wouldn’t die alone because he wouldn’t die at all so he’d never have to re-install a dating app out of desperation. He wouldn’t have to live one foot in hell, one foot in the mortal world, constantly struggling to stay balanced and yet never belonging totally to either.</p>
<p>This is why he always thinks first before a difficult conversation. Shooting from the hip would’ve done him no favors.</p>
<p>He stuffs the empty packages into his coat pocket for a later disposal and rolls onto his back to stare up at the sky, arms sprawled wide.</p>
<p>Would it hurt? Makoto sinking fangs into skin and vein would have to, but Makoto wouldn’t want it to. He’d be careful, only puncturing as far as he needed to, then… drinking? Strange term for it all. Makoto would have to face him and hold him down, when reflexes kicked in. With that immobilizing magic he used before, not literally pinning him with his weight and freakish strength. But he could do that, of course, if he liked a more personal touch. Not like Sousuke would… could stop him. Would Makoto be reluctant as he went or once he had a taste would he abandon that gentle nature of his?</p>
<p>Sousuke touches his fingertips to the side of his neck and imagines himself in that scenario: held down, heart hammering, Makoto turns his head just slightly to the side and whispers</p>
<p>
  <em>“Do you think I don’t want that?”</em>
</p>
<p>Sousuke bolts upright and looks over his shoulder for Makoto who is not there but may as well be for how clear and concise his memory chooses to replay that line at that particular moment in a tone Sousuke does not remember him using.</p>
<p>Right? He didn’t say it that way. It was the normal, hostile way to threaten someone, not… that. Slurried and low and close. For fuck’s sake there’s nothing left but a pile of dried out styrofoam peanuts between his ears.</p>
<p>Sousuke sighs the rising heat out of his face and searches the dark yard for a distraction. Across the yellowed grass, he spots a tiny white cat slink through a stream of moonlight. He clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth in a bid for its favor and does not win it. It sinks low, zeroes in on him with alarm, then disappears behind a tall perennial shrubby wall that’s filling out a sparse back fence.</p>
<p>Long after Sousuke figures the cat is gone, he hears it growl and yowl. Curious, as cats don't typically make such ugly noises, he investigates.</p>
<p>Behind the sparse fence is hillside. Sousuke can't see the details, but he can make out the cat bowed in an aggressive stance facing a figure silhouetted by moonlight. As his eyes adjust, it clearly becomes Makoto in height and outline and general slopeyness. Confirmed further by the two luminescent green eyes that look up and stare right at him. But how?</p>
<p>"Makoto?" Sousuke calls unsure through the fence.</p>
<p>Makoto turns and walks away. The cat takes the opportunity to dart into the night. That's strange for him; even his walk is all wrong.</p>
<p>"Hey, wait!" But he doesn't respond.</p>
<p>Sousuke untangles from the hedges and makes the decision to jump the fence and go after him. Something is off, Makoto isn't fully himself. Sousuke's intrinsic pull to him is totally absent.</p>
<p>The drop to the ground is an immediate referendum on the integrity of his knees and ankles: bad. He shakes out the ache and hobbles a step into a brisk walk after where Makoto was headed. Over the hill, there's no trace of him. So natural has the constant pull to Makoto become that Sousuke feels like a rope around his middle holding him from a drop down a sheer cliff has been severed when Makoto isn't where Sousuke expects him to be.</p>
<p>After a long and confusing moment, he sees the glowing green again, this time back behind the treeline across the field. There, a pull tugs at him, but less a string pulling him forward pierced through his heart and more the sensation of a shove from behind. He swallows down his worry about how wrong that feels and starts across the field.</p>
<p>Makoto teases him into the treeline, into the woods, always staying too far ahead to effectively question. Sousuke stumbles in the pitch darkness over roots and rocks, too quickly and recklessly for his taste but any slower and he feels that uncomfortable shove turn more into the menacing threat of a steam roller.</p>
<p>"Makoto, wait!" he calls, already knowing it won't happen. The green continues to move deeper.</p>
<p>Branch ends scratch at his face and gouge his hands as he moves unsteady and blind from tree to tree. Inevitably, he trips and twists a foot in a root tangle. He brushes his palms of cold and wet plant matter and soil while he works the foot free. "Fuck, ow."</p>
<p>Back to his feet, a glance onward shows Makoto is waiting for him, and the invisible shove accompanies the observation. "Okay, shit, I'm trying."</p>
<p>He keeps on uneasily. This isn't the town. It's dangerously cold without any buildings blocking drafts or putting out electrical noise. His fingertips have gone numb and his thin slip on shoes are soaked through to his soaked socks to his soaked feet. He has been so focused on his pursuit that he hasn't paid attention to where he's come from, denying a sure path back to Makoto's home, not that he could navigate without light anyway. The alarm bells ring louder and his instincts stubbornly plant and hold him from moving any deeper.</p>
<p>"Look I don't know what you're playing at but you're gonna get me killed!" he calls to the beckoning green.</p>
<p>The green eyes turn and look side to side. He walks closer to Sousuke, some of his features come into view but he is still mostly shrouded.</p>
<p>"Just a little farther," Makoto replies.</p>
<p>Unmistakably, it's his voice. It's his voice without its current though, a stagnant puddle of water. Sousuke looks over his shoulder back where he came from. He wants to go to the house, not follow Makoto. The pull is to go back. This isn't adding up.</p>
<p>"Come here, now." <em>Shove</em>.</p>
<p>"I don't want—"</p>
<p><em>Shove</em>. "Now."</p>
<p>Then, a real shove. The force slams square in the center of Sousuke's back, snapping his head and throwing him forward into the ground. There's nothing or no one behind him. He glares up at the Makoto peering down at him, his disposition disinterested by the lidded slope of his gaze.</p>
<p>"Who are you? Makoto wouldn't force me to do shit."</p>
<p>"Get up. Come."</p>
<p>"Stop insulting me." He gets up to one knee. "You're not him."</p>
<p>In his right ear, a hot breath and a hissing mouth. Sousuke lunges to the side and scrambles to his feet. He can't see it. Not-Makoto hasn't moved. Behind him, another inhuman hiss. Nothing there either when he whirls around.</p>
<p>"Come," Not-Makoto repeats.</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>He has to. Sousuke gets the vibe whoever this is will kill him anyway but a few minutes gained is a better chance of getting away than dying right here. It’s all progressing too fast for Sousuke to internalize. He was literally just eating chips on a back deck not thirty minutes ago.</p>
<p>Not-Makoto leads him much farther than he implied previously. Sousuke's feet are stabbing with pain from the cold and all the rocks and roots he has stubbed his toes into. His breath is labored and wheezing under the stress of being too hot in his coat and too cold to take it off and his temperature regulation on the fritz trying to figure it all out.</p>
<p>They come up on a small clearing, where the being finally stops and turns. The Makoto cloak falls away. Sousuke goes instantly catatonic with terror.</p>
<p>Red eyes. Dozens. A face made of faces.</p>
<p>In the surrounding bush, bundles of red eyes all light simultaneously. Countless mouths hiss and spit. He knows they are coming for him and they will literally eat him they've been telling him about it for days and fuck, oh fuck, it can’t be real and it is.</p>
<p>The center being cocks its head, distorting it in and out of a face made of faces and a single expressionless, porcelain-esque visage.</p>
<p>"Now. You. Run," it says in an overlay of croaks and squawks.</p>
<p>Sousuke flees.</p>
<p>A clacky, ratcheting <em>whoosh</em> sweeps after him. A high chatter bounces between the entities who take to the trees, it sounds like laughter. It’s all dawning on him, the sequential dreaming falls into place. A hunt. Sousuke was lead to the group for sport, they’ve been tracking him all week just to do it. From his cursing to his present his curse has made him a target— no, it’s made <em>Makoto </em>a target.</p>
<p>He set off in no direction, only an open one. It is no easier sprinting through the forest in the middle of the night as it was walking through it. Stabs and jabs poke fire up and down his limbs. He trips and stumbles endlessly, spurred to his feet by taunting snaps and licks where he is exposed.</p>
<p>Hundreds of red eyes collect into a wall in front of him. He pivots on a slide across the frosty forest floor and goes right. Slam, into a tree. Around and under woody arms. They appear, he corrects, they appear, he eats shit first, then corrects. They terrorize him, play with their food, each little poke and prod more brazen and close-cut than the last.</p>
<p>One bites down on his arm, a test; the coat prevents its pierce.</p>
<p>This can't be happening. This isn't real.</p>
<p>One yanks him back by the collar and grasping hands he cannot see rid him of the coat altogether. He yells out nothing intelligible, only verbalized panic, and move move <em>move</em> get the fuck away from it that whatever it is.</p>
<p>Exposed, the forest is a weapon itself. His top tears and scratches and gashes criss cross his arms through the thin and shredding sleeves. Something sharp goes through a shoe. None of it compares to the explosion of white fire that ignites at his left flank, by claws or teeth or both, it is now a dense mass of pain. He's screaming for anyone (him), maybe has been, definitely is now, definitely isn't stopping his futile escape attempt anyway.</p>
<p>This can't be happening. This isn't real.</p>
<p>Now that blood is drawn, his tormentors up the ante. They push him between each other as he tries to run. Belatedly, he realizes his sprint is long petered out to a shuffle, and his gait is awkward and buckled as he crimps towards his injured side.</p>
<p>One goes for his right shoulder; what feels like a quiver of fire pokers goes straight through the back and rips back out of him as if they're toothed to catch on the drag. Sousuke doubles forward and catches the glisten of his blood paint the fallen leaves below. His arm hangs limp and straight down.</p>
<p>This can't be happening. This isn't real.</p>
<p>He recoils away from every sharp and serrated nip, more numerous now and breaking skin. All he hears is their chattering laugh. He sees nothing but red eyes and another clearing ahead. Maybe the same one as before.</p>
<p>By the time he gets to it, sweat and blood sting his eyes and stain his lips and mouth. His injuries have forced him to a three-limbed crawl. His right arm drags. He fucked this one up good. Of course that wasn't Makoto, stupid fucker, there's a curse that makes it pretty fucking obvious when he's near Makoto, because his stupid fucking cursed heart soars when it shouldn't and he's not supposed to feel fear when he follows him it's supposed to be unwarranted, unasked for, safety and goddamned peace on earth even a fucking toddler attaching to their parents can figure that out but no, not him, not Sousuke that simple fucking guy, bleeding out and losing sight and still too fucking stupid to give up and stop looking around the clearing for him, chasing after that safety and smile, moron, no one can replicate another person's smile why couldn't he see that?</p>
<p>Makoto won't have to know about his dumb mistake, though. He's not coming, Sousuke saw how it ends in his dream.</p>
<p>The chattering descends on him. They take form, the dozen porcelain vultures from his nightmares donned in solid black or maybe that's their skin with their other-worldly glitchy shifts into many faces.</p>
<p>Sousuke's world flips violently end over end as he's lifted and thrown somewhere and when he stops he's on his back, staring up at a clear and starry sky. At his neck on the right, the frigid air collides with the warm run of new blood. Did one of them open his throat? His breath reduces to shallow pants; anything too deep hurts too much. Better a forest than a desert, he supposes, and better the quiet stars than the grisly sounds of his consumption. And ah, jeez, just when he was getting to like the guy in a frustrating way. May someone recover his black box.</p>
<p>The ground beneath him dips and ripples out. The wave flings the vultures away.</p>
<p>Green acrylic knit, chevroned with brown. Terribly dowdy. A sad little smile floats down to meet him— oh, it's Makoto. Sousuke would say hello, but he's busy pressing a hand to his freely bleeding neck and choking on a noxious mix of every liquid the upper body has to offer.</p>
<p>The chattering stops and devolves into hissing. Then, screeching, head-splitting screeching. They all pounce in unison.</p>
<p>Makoto gets to work.</p>
<p>Sousuke barely keeps up, too belabored with his multi-front battles against passing out and suffocation and wretched, unholy agony. Makoto the mirage, the TV glitch, takes on every one of them. He flits and teleports and rotates the ground to get distance and get close. When he catches one, he rips it apart. Somehow, his hands are punishing demonic claws, his mouth a churning maw of moving layers of teeth, and he is also still the normal, human Makoto he always is. He draws from the same monstrous void Sousuke has seen in moments with Haru. However, Makoto's beast is truly unfathomably awful, and it does not operate as its own entity as does Haru’s pet on a leash. Makoto <em>is</em> his monster.</p>
<p>There are many porcelain vultures though, and Makoto is only one monster who has not eaten in some time. Sousuke observes him make jagged ribbons of at least three of them, grabbing them by one of their mouths and separating the upper half from the lower jaw and following the tear down its torso. Makoto rips the throat out of another. But a fifth mounts his back, and a sixth clamps down on his human arm, and a seventh rakes a giant claw out from nowhere in this dimension down the front of Makoto's chest. He cries out, and through his own pain, Sousuke's heart <em>tugs</em> for him and implores him to help, do something, save his vampire.</p>
<p>…<em>Vampire</em>.</p>
<p>An end-of-life clarity finds Sousuke in the moment.</p>
<p>The chatter-laugh returns as the vultures win some ground back. Makoto's fight gets sloppy the longer he goes on, and they notice. They'll run out the clock. As with Sousuke, the vultures take pot shots and force Makoto to manipulate space and waste energy on non-lethal feints. He tears one down despite it, it's dying screech only second in gruesomeness to the squelching sounds of its flesh and organs, punctuated by the sickening wet slap as the innards pile on the ground.</p>
<p>They continue, though. They get their claws and teeth in him, too, and eventually, Makoto stumbles.</p>
<p>Meanwhile.</p>
<p>Sousuke surges everything he has left into rolling over. He, by elbow and knee by knee, crawls towards the fight, a mudskipper inching toward water.</p>
<p>Makoto falls to one knee, deathly silent, but rigid with determination to stand again. Sousuke forces his fucked up, dragging arm to work to the heated protest of his shredded shoulder, and grabs Makoto's clenched fist where it bunches at his side.</p>
<p>A ripple encases them; Makoto instantly cloaks them and whips his head down to look at Sousuke. His blood is black and way too all over him for Sousuke's comfort, if it's even his own. He misses the clean sweater.</p>
<p>Sousuke tightens his slick grip around Makoto's fist. "<em>Drink.</em>"</p>
<p>Makoto's eyes widen. The cloak he holds is weak and wavering already. This is the only shot they'll have.</p>
<p>"Makoto," Sousuke wheezes, "Drink. <em>Please.</em>"</p>
<p>He shakes his head a vehement <em>no</em>.</p>
<p>Sousuke releases him and beckons him down with his hand. He tries to roll over again and fails; Makoto aids him and leans over him.</p>
<p>"I can't," Makoto whispers, raspy, bent over close enough to make the fear he keeps hidden in his expression clear as day. "It's dangerous for you. I will—"</p>
<p>Sousuke doesn't have the strength to tell him he's dumb for worrying about hurting a dead man. What he does instead is release the pressure from his neck and reach up, cupping Makoto's stunned face with his hand. He holds him there in gaze and pose, and then as he is seemingly fated to do, does something stupid.</p>
<p>"You won’t.” He drags his bloody fingers to Makoto's lips, and seeks his tongue out through their speechless part. “Drink."</p>
<p>The mirage dome fractures in a spiderweb all around them. Makoto is statue-still, neither denying Sousuke his access nor leaning into his wish. His blood is on Makoto’s tongue. The rest is up to Makoto; that’s all the argument Sousuke has in him.</p>
<p>Makoto snatches Sousuke by the wrist. By the squeeze, he wants to throw Sousuke’s hand away from him. But he doesn’t. Or can’t. He slowly pulls it away instead, so Sousuke’s fingers trace over the curve of Makoto’s bottom lip, leaving a trail for him to lick away.</p>
<p>The fractured mirage now flakes away in shimmering planes of jagged glass, one panel at a time. Makoto can’t hold it, his whole body begins to shake. Sousuke loses him, vision plunging in and out of focus. Between spotty blackouts, Makoto moves in snapshots. Makoto must move Sousuke’s head to the side to open up the wound he can’t see and is now thankful he can’t. Cold air rushes in through it.</p>
<p>The heat has drained from Sousuke’s body so incrementally that he gasps awake in response to the warmth of Makoto’s mouth over his wounded neck. The inverse of their circumstances is stark; he shouldn’t be warm at all and Sousuke shouldn’t be this cold.</p>
<p>He’s going to die, and he can’t feel his neck or any of himself anymore for that matter, but the clarion, nonsensical thought of <em>don’t kill me don’t kill me don’t kill me </em>takes over as Makoto drains more blood out of his body. He never let go of Sousuke’s wrist either, and his grasp tightens and flirts with crushing forces. Then he feels the reverberation of its low snap, and still Sousuke has never been less concerned about broken bones.</p>
<p>There’s a shift in the disintegrating bubble, and that subconscious sense of mass and space can’t reconcile the visual size of Makoto versus the newly oppressive density of him. The blackouts interspersing consciousness are longer and any sense of time is nonfunctioning. Maybe Sousuke weakly asks Makoto to stop and Makoto somehow hears him, or maybe Makoto has what he needs and is still of sound enough mind to stop himself, but one moment he’s there and the next he’s gone and Sousuke’s left in the cold to fight against a final unconsciousness on nothing but primal instinct.</p>
<p>The mirage stops flaking apart, stuck in time, and then altogether drops away as a receding veil, cooly controlled and by Makoto’s will. Sousuke watches the back of his legs walking away from him, calm and steady, as a cloud of furious red eyes descends on him. He doesn’t flinch, stop, or defend.</p>
<p>They’re whole and then they’re not. It’s a rainshower of thick, black blood and overlapping wails and inhuman screams of horror that start and stop as soon as they’re audible. Makoto is no longer his monster, his monster is him. The porcelain vultures shred apart like long-simmering roasts. Makoto moves through them in slivers of dimensions and forcefully bends and tears the earth asunder, wielding it as extensions of himself, as grisly weapons of hellacious teeth and claws.</p>
<p>And nearly as soon as it began, before Sousuke chokes on his next shallow breath, the massacre stops. No dying moans, no vengeful heckles, no mocking chattering. Silence, second only to the sound of Sousuke’s bubbling exhale.</p>
<p>Then Makoto turns that even, measured walk on Sousuke.</p>
<p>It’s not Makoto. He would never. A comforting conviction to hold, anyway, as Definitely-Makoto returns to finish the job. He’s soaked and splattered with vulture meat and viscera, blessedly obscured in its most intimate details by Sousuke’s blurred vision and the cover of night. Only the sheen of the blood gives his form any shape aided by the menacing green glow of his eyes. Sousuke is terrified of him, a self-betraying truth he can’t deny that breaks his heart and hurts him more than any gash, stab, or fracture could. Makoto knew what would happen and would rather have risked both their lives to avoid it. Sousuke underestimated his monster.</p>
<p>Sousuke imagines himself squirming away, fighting back, telling him to stop, but he knows he can’t do any of that now. The unnatural, nauseating churning earth stretches out from Makoto and twists in and over itself towards Sousuke. It is a mass of grinding gnarled bands of teeth forming an organic open-faced meat grinder. The vultures he simply deconstructed as one bats away a fly. This is different. Personal. Consumption. That answers his question.</p>
<p>“Makoto.”</p>
<p>How profoundly sorrowful it sounds, how clear and sober it cuts through the haze.</p>
<p>Makoto looks up as Haru steps over Sousuke. A lance made of pitch pierces through the front and out the back of Makoto’s skull.</p>
<p>That’ll do it.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. mortality is flexible</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Haru sets his ink brush down in its pot and sits back from his paper canvas. By the look of it, he has decided the painting is done.</p><p>Sousuke sighs in response to the finished product. Haru can never be reasoned with. “Haru, that’s beautiful, but no one is commissioning schools of fish here.”</p><p>“I’ll do the commission work later.” He lowers onto his back and stretches his arms above his head and wiggles his spine loose. “It can wait.”</p><p>“Do you want a block of it?” Sousuke eyes the meticulous arrangement of scales on each little body and pales at the thought of hacking away each one with a tiny chisel tip. “I don’t know that we could sell that to a printer…”</p><p>“No,” Haru replies. “I just wanted to paint fish. I’m so bored of all the sex.”</p><p>It is remarkable how much of it makes up their business. Sousuke draws his knees up to his chest, as best the layers of the kosode will allow for. “We’ve been talking about looking for business outside of the city. Maybe it’s time.”</p><p>Haru lolls his head lazily to the side to look at him, studying him quietly. “Would that make you happy?”</p><p>“I’m happy wherever we end up.”</p><p>Haru hums unimpressed and looks back at the ceiling. “That’s not true.”</p><p>“It is,” Sousuke argues, maybe too quickly. “Truly, as long as we’re together, I’m happy.”</p><p>“Then you have a strange definition of it.”</p><p>Everything, of course, is a philosophical argument for Haru. Sousuke has found this life is much easier day by day, with a narrower focus on what he has, not what he does not have. There’s not much sense in trying to explain it to Haru; he’s tried many times. He’s taken to smiling his response now when Haru challenges him on it. What Sousuke wants, he can’t have. To tie happiness to impossibilities is foolish.</p><p>“Might be worth the change of scenery,” Haru reasons, moving on when Sousuke doesn’t take the argument bait. “We don’t need the money at this point.”</p><p>“Then let’s make plans soon, while the days are short and easier to move through.”</p><p>Haru holds his hand straight above his face and examines the ink stains embedded in the creases of his skin and beneath his nails. “We’ve been here too long anyway. People are starting to notice we haven’t been getting old with them.”</p><p>“Mmm. We can only joke about that for so long.”</p><p>The chime outside the shop door clings its three-note song. The look Haru exchanges with him says neither are expecting anyone. Their business is open at night for the most part, obviously, but not this late. And Sousuke doesn’t have any clients until tomorrow.</p><p>He unfurls his tangled limbs and scoot-crawls to a full stand to investigate. He can feel as he descends the stairs into their floor-level studio that it’s foggy and damp and eerie outside, conditions which still manage to stress him out after all this time. At sea, it used to mean a cold, uncomfortable sleep. Ships would always creak and groan louder in the cold, too. Some memories turn into sensations and never fade.</p><p>The door slides open to reveal a woman in ragged kosode, petite, with brilliant red hair wrapped up loosely and unwaxed in a large bun with no decoration, as if she literally just tied it back moments ago. Unusual for a woman in Edo not to have some sort of comb in the least, but given the hour, perhaps not. She isn’t in distress or bothered in any measurable way. Only politely waiting for a response.</p><p>“Hello. Can I help you?”</p><p>She blinks her stunning red eyes and tilts her head. There’s a girlish innocence she’s trying to disarm him with that Sousuke isn’t buying. “This is Night Sea, isn’t it?”</p><p>Sousuke does not open the door any farther, using his body to block her view into the studio. “It is yes, but I’m sorry, we’re not open at the moment. Are you wanting a commission?”</p><p>“Oh, that’s too bad.” She frowns. “I was told you’re only open at night.”</p><p>“Most of it. But we do need rest, and most aren’t looking for an artist after midnight.”</p><p>This would be the part where a mistaken person would excuse themself and ask when they could return, but she does not. The longer he stares at her, the more he gets the impression she thinks he should know who she is. A rich patron he’s forgotten about? But then why would she show up in public, dressed like this?</p><p>“Perhaps, since I’m already here, you’ll let me meet the artist?” She smiles. “I’ve come a long way is all.”</p><p>Sousuke is nothing without his keen sense of character judgement, and this doesn’t pass even a preliminary sniff test. “I’m sorry, he’s resting. You’ll have to come back tomorrow, at sundown.” He tacks on a belated smile. “What did you say your name was?”</p><p>Her eyes pinch at the corners and her cheeks don’t lift when she returns his smile. She’s angry. “I’m no one. Only an admirer.” She bows sitfly. “Thank you, I’ll come back tomorrow.” She turns to leave, but twists back and speaks quietly. “You seem kind. I’m sorry.”</p><p>And that’s all. Sousuke watches her walk away and down the street, until the fog swallows her whole.</p><p>He senses Haru standing behind him. “Who was it, Makoto?”</p><p>Makoto?</p><p>Sousuke turns around, and the Night Sea is on fire.</p><p>He shouts and throws his arms over his face to protect himself from the burns that the heat and blasting light inflict simultaneously. It’s not an effective defense; his skin combusts regardless of what he’s wearing.</p><p>“Leave it!”</p><p>“It’s your art!”</p><p>Someone yanks Sousuke out of the door. Haru. He whirls around. “Are you losing your mind? Look around!”</p><p>He looks beyond Haru’s burned and pleading face. The whole street is burning. The food vendors. The textile merchants. The salons. No telling how far it goes back, or if it has taken over other streets. All he knows is that it was quick. The entire quarter went up in flames in minutes and, disoriented and injured by the light and heat and what might’ve been the concussive force of fire bombs, he is only now processing the situation.</p><p>Those who live here, and were sleeping, now scream and pour into the streets. Some run, some gather neighbors, some trample others, some are already on the ground. Some are intact and unharmed, others trying to put out flames on their garments and only spreading a flaming substance across themselves worse.</p><p>Then, to Sousuke’s dawning dread, the reason their quarter is burning reveals itself.</p><p>“We need to run.”</p><p>Despite the danger to their kind, tendrils of shadowy pitch snake into the flame-brightened streets and from their rendered gashes in the ground leaps at least twenty feeders. They’re humanoid and snarling, with sets of crooked, long, arrowhead-shaped teeth jutting from and cutting into their lips. By their appearance, these feeders are corrupted, and won’t mind too much the combustive effect of the fire’s light.</p><p>It’s the Fisherman.</p><p>“Now!” Haru snags him with his identical shadow, and shoves him towards a break in the chaos as the feeders pounce on the panicked crowd and begin to eat or drain them. They’ll come next for Sousuke and Haru, once they’re brimming with stolen life and feel powerful enough to take them down.</p><p>They don’t know just how incapable of fighting back Haru and Sousuke are.</p><p>Haru pulls them along with his shadow in little skipping stutters to get more distance, but they soon run into barriers that force them down the main road in lieu of escaping through a side route. The flames are taxing, Haru is losing steam and burning up. His shadow skipping takes a lot of energy, and moving them both on it must be excruciating. Sousuke does his best to deflect the flame’s heat and light with his own manipulations, but that isn’t what his veils are meant to do and it is equally taxing to pull enough white from surroundings without much white in them into the manipulation opaque enough to bounce back all this light.</p><p>They’ve barely put any useful distance between them and their pursuers. This was planned down to the minute, going so far as to buy time for the feeders to attack the citizens before turning to find Sousuke and Haru. All exits are blocked and a mutually dangerous fire wasn’t an oversight, it was meant to force them to wear themselves out trying to escape. They’re being kettled.</p><p>Finally, Haru skips them but can’t smoothly glide them off, and they both hit the ground hard, into and over each other. The momentum flings Haru out of reach, and Sousuke feels a panic building when Haru doesn’t immediately get back up after tumbling to a stop.</p><p>“Haru!” Sousuke crawls towards him, Haru weakly pushes up onto his hands and collapses before he can get his elbows to lock out. His skill is unparalleled among any feeder Sousuke has ever known, but too long has he been cooped up in their studio, without food or practice. Once at his side, Sousuke helps him up, pulling Haru’s arm along his shoulders and allowing him to hang off.</p><p>But where can they go?</p><p>Sousuke focuses as much reflection over Haru as he can, even as his right side takes the consequences of going undefended. He swallows his cries as it burns, knowing Haru would figure out what he’s done if he heard it. He takes them farther up the street, as it has been orchestrated, and also because the fire peters out up ahead and would at least deliver them back into the safety of darkness.</p><p>Past the worst of the smoke, two figures up ahead come into focus. They’re standing in the middle of the road, even as citizens part around them in their escape and flames lick their way up the wooden structures towards them.</p><p>One is the girl from days ago, dressed as before. The other, in more of a fieldworker’s ensemble, he undoubtedly has never seen but also, strikes him as familiar. They’re obviously related, but that’s not why Sousuke recognizes him in particular. Sousuke stops within speaking distance of them. The flames are behind them enough to allow him some rest. “Who are you?”</p><p>“You know who we’re with, does it matter who we are?” the man says.</p><p>They’re not feeders, he would feel that. They’re mortals. There’s a darkness in them Sousuke can almost taste, but it inhabits them crudely. It isn’t theirs. Striking are his teeth, sharp to points, despite his mortality. Something went awry here; they’re not normal mortals.</p><p>“You’ll get us killed.”</p><p>“That’s the plan,” he says.</p><p>Sousuke looks to the girl, sensing her likely-sibling isn’t allowing himself to be reachable. “You came to our home and marked us as targets.”</p><p>“I did,” she agrees without inflection.</p><p>“Why?!”</p><p>Her face doesn’t shift into anything. They’re both toneless and neutral, holding themselves at a distance. “We were told to.”</p><p>“What? What did we do to you? You’re mortal! We haven’t hurt anyone!”</p><p>Here, the two exchange a glance. An unexpected fury twists up the man’s face when he turns his gaze back on them.</p><p>“<em>You—”</em></p><p>But the woman swiftly grabs his hand to comfort him and offers Sousuke some advice. “Run, if you think it will help you. We can’t stop you.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“Better hurry,” the man says with equal parts disgust and mockery. He nods to a spot just over Sousuke’s shoulder. “They’ll take you to him if they catch you. We can’t stop them either.”</p><p>They’re coming, they’ve fed. Sousuke doesn’t have time to figure out these two. He hikes a half-responsive Haru up his side where he has slipped and pushes on past the two strangers. True to their word, they don’t do so much as trip him, only stand where they’re planted with their gazes stretched out over the mess they’ve helped create.</p><p>“Where are they?” he asks Haru, who can feel the shadows move better than he can.</p><p>“Close.”</p><p>Helplessness creeps into his voice. “I don’t know where to go. He was never supposed to find us.”</p><p>Haru is silent.</p><p>“How did it happen?”</p><p>Haru digs his heels into the dirt and forces Sousuke to set him down. He stands, barely, but squares Sousuke with his eyes unwavering. “It’s my fault.”</p><p>Sousuke is lightheaded, whether from the revelation or the exertion. The confession can only mean one thing: he fed. Enough to have been noticed. “No. You didn’t.”</p><p>“It was a shipwreck, months ago. I was weak. Makoto, I—”</p><p>Makoto?</p><p>He comes to, line of sight bouncing along the ground. Carried. He’s being carried back through the carnage and the flame over a feeder’s shoulder. His arms hang charred down the feeder’s back. Haru is carried behind him, Sousuke doesn’t sense anything from him, and he isn’t moving. Every step jostles him like a ragdoll in the feeder’s grasp. Defenseless, worn down to charred bits of nothing, and going straight to the Fisherman, who will kill them for running.</p><p>Will Sousuke let it happen, is the question. Will he watch the Fisherman, Sousuke’s maker and tormentor, hand Haru off to his First Mate, Haru’s personal tormentor? Will he watch Haru die, after all these decades upon decades of doing his best to keep Haru safe, even when they fought? After what he had to do in the first place, to secure them their freedom? The innocents he slaughtered when it was made clear what would happen to Haru if he didn’t obey?</p><p>No. He won’t let it happen. That much is simple.</p><p>Sousuke has relied on demonic energy to get him this far, but only humans can dig deeper and find fight after it seems there isn’t any left. He holds onto some portion of his humanity, even now. Sousuke takes a deep breath, and when he exhales, he shakes the earth.</p><p>Mayhem, as the feeders are thrown outwards in all directions, including Haru and Sousuke. He does not relent his manipulation until he finds what he is looking for; every time a feeder attempts to rise, he knocks it off its feet. He blocks out how hard it hits Haru too. He‘ll be all right, eventually.</p><p>Too many dead and injured for the feeders to have cleaned through. Sousuke hurries from body to body, wobbly on his feet as he is not in total control of his illusions, which can work on him too if he’s not at his best. He’s lucky the feeders didn’t break his legs or back as they did Haru’s.</p><p>Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. These people are all dead. He needs—</p><p>A man his own size, of similar appearance, blinks up at him. He’s injured, immobile, and in some sort of shock. But he’s alive. In a better situation, were there time, Sousuke would make sure at the very least his hunt was injured fatally. He can’t do that here, and the ambiguity wrenches a frustrated sob out of him. He’ll never know if he changed this man’s fate tonight, or if he only sped his inevitable conclusion along.</p><p>He drops to his knees next to the man and strokes his face, a useless gesture of comfort for Sousuke and a false hope for the man who leans into it, and something he can’t help but do.</p><p>“It’ll be okay,” he tells the man even as the man’s face contorts into horror the clearer Sousuke’s damaged body comes into focus for him. As his voice chokes, he keeps lying. “It’ll be okay.”</p><p>Then Sousuke kills him to little resistance, only weak convulsions. He sinks his teeth into the thick vein and drains the man dry; he needs every bit. It comes on as a blanket of darkness. A pit he trips backwards into. As he falls, laughter reverberates up the walls, a sick and twisted version of his own voice. The unwelcome prisoner escapes, overcome with hysteria and elation at his release after such a long sleep.</p><p>Sousuke closes his eyes, relishes in the fullness of the flood, and then he’s gone.</p><p>“M… Makoto—”</p><p>Makoto?</p><p>Through the eyes of Makoto’s monster, Sousuke watches.</p><p>Haru pleads with him to let go, in a scratchy voice and with large, fearful eyes. Makoto has his hands around Haru’s neck, holding him out in front of himself. Sousuke feels Makoto’s muscles tense with coiled energy. He fights against himself to hold Haru in one piece, and not tear him to hundreds of bits, as the vultures and victims around them have been shredded to.</p><p>The reason for his inner fight is clear. He feels Makoto break through the surface of the tar pit he’s stuck beneath, somewhere far away: <em>No no no no no!</em></p><p>
  <em>Not this one? I’m hungry.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Not ever!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Anyone but him. Please.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hm.</em>
</p><p>Makoto drops Haru, who crumples to the ground.</p><p>Sousuke’s stomach rumbles. Or Makoto’s. He’s still famished. Mad with hunger and not in control of how to react to it. He searches through the flames, unbothered by their lick at the peak of his ability, and doesn’t want for another hunt for long; the siblings have tracked them down.</p><p>They survey the gruesome scene and step back, nervous, hoping they weren’t seen. Makoto is already grinning, though. Their scent is heady and rises above all the death. Sousuke wills them to run. He doesn’t want to see them destroyed, doesn’t want to hear Makoto scream from within himself as he hurts people he doesn’t want to hurt and has little strength to stop it.</p><p>But this is a replay. It already happened. Sousuke is a passenger, unable to interfere with the past.</p><p>Makoto walks after them, easily ignoring his own pleas, now that he’s struck a devil’s deal with himself.</p><p>
  <em>Anyone but Haru? What freedom.</em>
</p><p>The man and woman face their pursuer, clearly familiar with the reality that though Makoto walks, they can’t outrun him.</p><p>The man laughs dryly. “Didn’t expect this.”</p><p>“Rin,” the woman says. “He said this wouldn’t happen.”</p><p>“He lied, as usual.” Rin stands in front of her. “You should try to run first, maybe you can get back to him.”</p><p>“No, Rin!”</p><p>“<em>Yes,</em> Gou!”</p><p>A corrosive anger grows in Sousuke, in Makoto. The woman found him and Haru. She reported that to the Fisherman. This is their fault. All their fault. Mortals, <em>fucking mortals,</em> he’ll destroy them for that, so they can never do it again. And, at the same time, Makoto begs for their lives. He sees the struggle in their faces. He sees himself in their actions. The Fisherman did this to them. And he ignores himself.</p><p>Makoto digs two grinding maw trenches in raised ground and turns his earth-torn claws on the siblings, poised to unleash. Gou never ran and Rin doesn’t bother telling her to again; they know. She embraces his arm and leans her head on his shoulder, he softens his stance and does his best to face what’s coming without flinching.</p><p>“Makoto.”</p><p>His cyclical murderous thoughts immediately cease and fall away, word by word. The wall Makoto could not breach alone is easily broken through with the aid of Haru’s voice, speaking to <em>him, </em>not his body.</p><p>It’s at first a tingle at the nape of his neck. Then Sousuke can see what Makoto can’t, behind him, as he also shares Makoto’s vantage of the siblings. Haru drags himself forward on his elbows, limped along by his weak shadow.</p><p>He pulls the shadow into a point. A lance made of pitch pierces through the back and out the front of Makoto’s skull.</p><hr/><p>As he's come to get used to, Sousuke awakens screaming, with two spots on his head hot and irritated. Real or imagined, it’s still freaking him out. His body is not working as he intends it to. He is tangled and restrained, some parts are numb and others are overstimulated. What should be a flailing bounce away from wherever he is manifests as little more than a writhing struggle. He can’t do more than that.</p><p>“Calm down.”</p><p>From the door. Haru slides it closed behind himself, a cup in one hand and a basket balanced on his hip in the other. He makes his way over to Sousuke, who has since stopped screaming and has realized he’s on the futon from Makoto’s home, but in no room he recognizes.</p><p>Haru plants on the floor next to him, nudging the cup forwards and turning to rifle through the basket. Sousuke attempts movement again. He can sit up, if he uses his left arm to lift and brace himself. Not too hard, as his wrist is in some makeshift splint and even looking at it makes it throb. The right arm is a dull roar of ache and not bearing weight. He reaches across himself once upright and downs the water Haru provided him, setting the cup back down before Haru finishes doing whatever he’s doing.</p><p>“Thanks.” He’s still raspy and parched, and cringes at the sound of his voice. Immediate danger avoided, the surreal image of Haru sitting next to him unbothered like it’s any other day in his life comes to the forefront of his concerns. “Did… did you fucking kill him?!”</p><p>Haru pauses his task and looks up at Sousuke, opaque in expression but serious in his direct eye contact. “No. If I had, why would I have saved you?”</p><p>“Ah. Right.” It’s a basket of medical supplies. Sousuke notices he’s wrapped up and patched all over as his brain reconnects with his body. “Was all that… real? Where are we and how long?”</p><p>He doesn’t look up this time, focused on spreading gel on a square pad. He has a phone on the floor next to the basket with some sort of guide pulled up. It’s not exactly reassuring that his fate has apparently been in the hands of a void-hopping fish vampire who hasn’t had a need to study modern medicine ever. But, he’s grateful nonetheless. “Do you feel like it was real? You certainly look like it was. We’re hiding. And it’s been a few days.”</p><p>“How am I alive then?”</p><p>One pad down, he prepares another. “You share energy with Makoto. I imagine that means your mortality is… flexible.”</p><p>“So I can’t die?”</p><p>“Oh, no, you can.” Haru looks up again, and gestures at Sousuke to sit up straight. “And would’ve, probably, if I didn’t get there when I did.”</p><p>He does his best to comply. Bruising makes it difficult. “Yeah, on accounta he was going to eat me. I meant from the injuries.”</p><p>“Yes. You can die from injury. Your carotid was only nicked; I wouldn’t have been able to stop that if it were severed.” Haru reaches for his wrapped shoulder, and stops just at the edge of the wrap. “Can I?”</p><p>Sousuke nods, and Haru begins to pull medical tape off of him. Slowly, which is nice of Haru, as this would be a great opportunity to fuck with him. “Where is he?”</p><p>“Resting. It takes a long time for us to recover from a head wound.”</p><p>“Wound? You sent a fucking interdimensional lance clear through his brain. You lobotomized him.”</p><p>“Right. So, a long time.” Tape removed, he next peels off one pad on the front of Sousuke’s shoulder, which feels like shit, then the one on the back, which also feels like shit. The air makes it sting. “Would you rather I hadn’t done that?”</p><p>Haru next cleans the wound, sponging away at the tender flesh. Even a careful touch is excruciating here. Sousuke grinds his teeth through it, looking away from the chewed up, angry sight in the corner of his eye. This twists the adhesive on his neck, tugging the skin apart at the wound there, too. “Depends. Would he really have killed me?”</p><p>“Yes. You know that, so don’t look to me for comforting lies.” Onto the back. The muscle between the entry and exit points aches unimaginably bad, radiating heat down deep into his elbow and across his chest. “You appear to be healing faster than the average mortal, so that’s something.”</p><p>“Doesn’t feel like it.”</p><p>“Well, you’re awake and alert, and Makoto isn’t, so I’d say things could be worse for you.” Haru lays one gelled patch over the front, and the second on the back. The gel is cooling and soothing and, miraculously, numbing. He redresses the wound in tape while Sousuke chews on what he said.</p><p>He shouldn’t worry about him, given Makoto can’t die, but he does. How does feeding change him, and for how long? Did Haru dislodge any memories? His weird unconscious sync with Makoto’s past didn’t show him the aftermath of putting the rabid dog down. Did Makoto even want him to see that?</p><p>“Is he okay?”</p><p>“I told you he will be, in time.”</p><p>“Is he <em>okay?</em> Will he be the same when he wakes up?”</p><p>Haru’s taken Sousuke’s permission to work on his shoulder as an assumed affirmative for working next on his neck. He pokes an index finger to Sousuke’s temple until Sousuke sighs and tilts his head away from Haru, giving him access to the area. No use in refusing his care at this point, if he’s more familiar with Sousuke’s injuries than Sousuke is.</p><p>Haru doesn’t say anything as he removes the old dressing and dabs away whatever muck collected beneath it. “You really care?”</p><p>“Of course I d— <em>ow</em>— do. I want to see him.”</p><p>“He’ll need time.”</p><p>“You said that already. That’s not what I’m asking about.”</p><p>His neck cleans up faster. Haru smooths another, smaller gelled patch to it and sits back on folded legs. He clearly hates what he had to do to Makoto, that much is apparent in the tired tightness of his face. “Not at first. But I’ll take care of it.”</p><p>Sousuke swallows a lump in his throat brought on by how evasive that is. “What does that mean?”</p><p>“It means it takes time,” Haru repeats, irritated now. “You’re bleeding all over the place. He can smell that. He’s going to wake up and remember what he did. He won’t want to be near you. He can’t stand not being in control and that demon has not been freed in some time and will want more."</p><p>This is too vague still. He just wants to see him and apologize. “So what, I have to wait until he is only sort of hungry? The… the blood wears off? What is it?”</p><p>“Language is so inadequate for these conversations,” Haru laments, briefly pressing a forefinger to his temple. “But no. You have to wait until <em>he </em>feels in control again, like he can resist himself. That’s up to him.” His mouth is grim and his tone drops. “I don’t know what made him do it. After all this time. He must’ve really been in trouble.” He looks Sousuke over. “Or he did it for you.”</p><p>“No.” Sousuke twists his fingers in the blanket and fails to look Haru in the eye for his confession. “It’s my fault. I made him taste it. He didn’t want to.”</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>“He was losing. Those things were going to kill him.” Now he knows better. They would’ve killed Sousuke. Makoto, they would’ve broken and dragged off somewhere. “I thought that then.”</p><p>Haru picks up on his odd phrasing. “What do you think now?”</p><p>“I saw what they were. I saw both of you, a long time ago, in my sleep. They were sent by the Fisherman. I watched Makoto feed and kill them then, too.” More that he <em>was</em> Makoto, but that’s too exhausting right now to unpack.</p><p>Haru is unfazed by this development. He’s unfazed by virtually everything though. Likely once you’ve lived long enough, you’ve seen it all. “Then he’s telling you he chose to do it. You didn’t make him. Not how you think you did, anyway.”</p><p>“He didn’t do it for me,” Sousuke protests, finding the notion absurd. “He barely knows me. He knew he’d try to kill me if he did it. That all doesn’t add up.”</p><p>“Maybe he thought he could control it. It was that or he figured you would certainly die if he couldn’t stop the feeders, so he had to risk it.” Haru shrugs. “He doesn’t want you to die. He wants you to live. And, you might not believe this coming from me, but he always does what he wants. He just makes you <em>think </em>he won’t.”</p><p>What’s Sousuke supposed to feel about that? The implication Makoto would break a multi-century fast, surrender his mind to some demon inside him, just for Sousuke? Soul-bonded familiar or not, he’s mortal. Expendable. Friends or not, Sousuke is barely a blink on Makoto’s lifespan. He isn’t worthy of that sacrifice. Not from any self-loathing perspective, but as objectively as he can look at it, in a cost-benefit analysis sort of way.</p><p>“You’re overthinking it. I used to.” Sousuke now wonders if Makoto showed him his conversation with Haru in their studio from long ago for this reason. “He feels your safety is his responsibility. He likes you. That’s enough for him to do stupid things for either of us, even if we do stupid things first.”</p><p>Sousuke didn’t expect that out of Haru, ever. Not that he got the feeling Haru didn’t like him, only that Haru clearly didn’t figure him as anything other than a fleeting presence not worth the attention. And, fair. Sousuke respects him even if snarking him is fair game; he cares about what’s going on too, even if he’s reserved about it. That being thought, he grins despite the bruising on his face flaring up in protest. “I think you like me too.”</p><p>Haru rolls his eyes. “I’m too old for an ego. You don’t want to hurt us. You probably saved him because of what you did. That’s enough for me. Now get onto your stomach.”</p><p>Haru steps around him to sit on his other side while he complies, albeit awkwardly and not without a lot of grunting and pausing through his body’s spasms of protest. It’s embarrassing how useless he feels, and Haru could easily laugh at him or grow impatient if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. His bullish assessment of Haru as a smarmy, edgy elitist, he concedes, may have been a tad aggressive and unfair.</p><p>The wound at his flank is the worst yet to clean up and redress. It may as well take up his entire left side. It was more of a blunt force trauma at the time that it happened, and quickly eclipsed in intensity by the other various mtuilations, but now it turns his stomach into knots as Haru works on it. He breaks into a cold sweat and forces all his breathing through his nose to quell the nausea. He doesn't need to see himself to know his face is clammy and white as a sheet.</p><p>“Sorry,” Haru mutters. He’s scrubbing at it now, and not kindly.</p><p>“<em>Fuck.</em>”</p><p>He relents and gives Sousuke a break. “This one might keep giving us problems.”</p><p>“What the hell happened back there?”</p><p>“Claws but… corrosive. I did my best to get it off of you, but it damaged a lot of tissue and there’s a lot of, well, dead stuff.” He feels Haru hover over the area again and tenses. “Breathe.”</p><p>Deep breath in, long breath out. Haru continues to scrub off both “dead stuff” and Sousuke’s ability to hold down his hissing and groaning. Another wound he is happy he can’t see. He does his best to stay still, and Haru corrects him when he can’t. Finally, after one million years, Haru stops grinding the equivalent of steel wool into his side and gives him a moment to catch his breath again.</p><p>“Didn’t know… you guys could… make acid too.”</p><p>“We can’t. Whoever that was, wasn’t related to us and probably a pick-up.”</p><p>Sousuke sighs and turns his head to lay it on the other side so he can see Haru. “You know I’m going to ask one hundred questions right now so just lay it all on me.”</p><p>Talking through this is good for pain management, so thankfully Haru nods. “We all feed on mortal blood. But the one who turns you passes on their unique curse. The Fisherman uses illusions, so Makoto uses illusions. His First Mate, my maker, draws from a vessel in hell full of pitch. That’s the tale of it, anyway. The shadows you see are un-space. Nothing. I use it to move between points, mostly. I have no idea what it’s better used for, and I don’t really care how true or untrue any of the origins are.” Always has to be a cool guy about everything.</p><p>“The Fisherman and the First Mate have those braindead crewmates to do dirty work for them. They are vampires who corrupt, but weren’t strong enough to ascend into full demons, as they did. That’s rare. All that’s to say, the corrosive one belonged to another maker, one who has fully been invited to hell as is a demon’s end game, or is trapped somewhere on Earth, not destroyed yet but still alive. Without a maker to respond to, the garbled ones find another pack.”</p><p>So all of the bloodthirst and none of the discretion. “If the maker dies, the lackeys die?”</p><p>“The failed corrupted will. They’re too weak to lose that connection to hell. The turned, as Makoto and I are, will not. We are still connected to humanity.”</p><p>“Then what happens to you?”</p><p>“Mmm… these unformed demonic presences we share ourselves with will see a power void and want to fill it. Hell is strictly hierarchical and prioritizes the most powerful. If the maker dies by our hand or otherwise, our demonic curse would, probably, force us to feed and attempt to ascend. If we failed, we would probably corrupt or die. And I don’t think we would last long refusing a relentless assault by that presence. We’d go mad.”</p><p>“Lots of probably-s in there.”</p><p>“It’s what I’ve pieced together in my travels over a very long time of careful searching. Makoto and I are very isolated from any other… vampires.” A word he does not prefer, but uses for Sousuke’s sake. “I’m not totally sure what all possibilities exist. It doesn’t happen often. There aren’t many of us, but ascended demons like the Fisherman and his First Mate are hard to kill in the first place, and quickly replaced to continue the curse line when they are.”</p><p>“No wonder the best option was to hide.” Every route leads to a break with humanity. Sousuke would run too.</p><p>Haru now applies a thick, dry dressing to the aired out and ebbing fire of his wound, packing it solid to keep it from festering, presumably. The pressure is unpleasant. “They’re obsessed with us, our betrayal, but also our potential. We are dangerous to them because they know, should we want it, we could ascend and ruin their aspirations of leaving the mortal world. We’re better off destroyed if we are not loyal.”</p><p>Sousuke sighs. “And they found you again because of me.”</p><p>Haru’s quick to confirm that, though without any disdain. “Yes, probably. It’s not your fault, but a familiar’s curse is meant to empower the master by giving them a mortal energy source to draw from. It has invigorated Makoto somewhat. Enough that anyone who may’ve been looking for a specific energy signature for hundreds of years would have noticed when it reappeared. Again, just my assumption. We weren’t sure if it would happen.”</p><p>“But you feed,” Sousuke remembers aloud. “Your energy reads, doesn’t it?”</p><p>He finishes taping down the wound pack and takes the opportunity to clean up around other spots on his back. “That, I don’t have an answer for. The First Mate should have tracked me down ages ago, but only has once and never again after that.” Edo. “I’ve tested it many ways, leaving Makoto for years at a time just to see if he would find me. He’s still alive, and would never leave the Fisherman’s side, so I truly don’t know. Flip over.”</p><p>Another terrible performance and he’s on his back again. Haru begins work over the rest of the lesser injuries. It’s a lot of information, again. But nothing he can’t absorb this time. It does expose one burning question, with regards to Sousuke’s role in all of this. “So then what, exactly, is the point of a familiar? An extra battery pack that also does your bidding, that’s it?”</p><p>Haru chews the inside of one cheek and takes his time to put together a response, as Makoto might. A delicate answer, then. “The Fisherman told us once. Should you bond with your familiar, as a human would another human, and choose to consume them, you will ascend. It’s a short-cut. Nothing proves allegiance to hell like forsaking love for power, not even all the anonymous murdering and turning in the world.”</p><p>“Ah. How… romantic.”</p><p>Haru sits back with finality and places items back into his basket. “Long before us, the First Mate killed his familiar to ascend and serve alongside the Fisherman. I suppose what’s romantic depends whose perspective you’re using.”</p><p>“Well, good news is I don’t have to worry about any of that for me.”</p><p>“Which part?”</p><p>Their eyes meet. Haru, genuinely curious, and Sousuke, not sure what he meant. That Makoto wouldn’t consume him, or that Makoto could never bond with him enough to get to where his betrayal would prove anything. “I just don’t see any of it happening.”</p><p>But Haru can, Sousuke overheard as much. Haru knows and believes a lot of things, though, and still was surprised Makoto fed. No amount of knowledge is the same as being another person, able to always predict how they will act and feel. He can guess Makoto’s heart and will, but he can’t know it.</p><p>Haru doesn’t push. “Well. I’m getting tired of talking. And rest is really all you should be doing. I’ll prepare you some food, but then you need to sleep.”</p><p>“Thank you. But one more thing,” Sousuke insists.</p><p>Haru stands with his basket and waits for Sousuke’s inquiry.</p><p>“Did you kill those siblings? Makoto didn’t want to, despite what they did.”</p><p>His blue eyes flare bright in the dim room, whatever that means. “I didn’t. I let them go.”</p><p>“That was kind.”</p><p>“Makoto said that too. I don’t think it was.” He looks away. “I thought it was, at first. But all I did was ensure they lived out the rest of their lives in misery as pawns for the Fisherman. Killing them would’ve been a mercy, as it would’ve been for us, once upon a time.”</p><p>“Oh. He could’ve turned them like he turned you?” Why he would consider that a solace at this point, Sousuke has no idea.</p><p>“Maybe. But he always liked to kill more than he liked to turn. Power doesn’t like competition.” Haru decides he is done with the conversation, and pivots for the door. “Rest, now.”</p><p>He lingers in the doorway, debating with himself, and ultimately does choose to torture Sousuke, just a little. “Makoto needs you to.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. deus ex matsuoka</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For three days, Sousuke does as he’s asked. For Makoto’s sake. He sleeps, a lot. He allows Haru to help keep his injuries clean and dressed. He showers by the second day, determined to get through it alone. He sits down halfway through and passes out at some point but rallies and manages (sits immobilized under the stream). He makes Haru go get him toiletries, which is a power he really enjoys employing, until Haru brings him back dog shampoo. The only shampoo he could find without fragrance, he said. Liar.</p><p>Sousuke is healing quickly, though. Haru was right about that. He does what he’s asked for three days since he can’t do much else. But by the fourth day, he can wander on his feet without blacking out and think about things other than his own discomfort. What’s apparent before he can get a shirt over his head is that he’s weak, frustratingly so. Between the torn up shoulder and the fractured wrist and the neck gash and the near-necrotic flank, getting a shirt on is a waking nightmare, and likely why Haru never tried to get one on him. He aborts the idea between a series of puffy, pathetic little sobs before he ever gets the collar past his head and settles for a blue plaid house robe. Kind of Haru to also void skip some of his piles of clothes over to wherever this is.</p><p>Haru’s attempt to keep him fed is admirable, but lacking. If he sees one more cold can of broth and limp noodles with sad little squares of rehydrated vegetable bits in it he will cry. He needs more for his body in recovery, a lot more. But he can’t cook or go to the store, either. He sympathizes with Haru’s sensitive nose, but he breaks on the fourth day after the shirt almost actually does make him cry and asks for something hot, fresh, a lot of it, and with dead things in it or on it that are not fish and are dairy-free. It’s how planning dates used to be with newly socially-conscious university students. After some exhausting back and forth about what that all means, Haru leaves and returns with a family-portion box of fried chicken. And nothing else. Never has he been so helpless in the face of a person who has not had to pay any meaningful attention to food and how it is consumed for half a millennia.</p><p>Other than that argument, he’s bored. And staring at Makoto’s closed door isn’t going to make anything happen any faster. He tried it already. So he sits now on a fallen tree, somewhere in the deep woods in the late evening with only the harsh light of a solar lantern to orient him. There’s a half-eaten carton of fried chicken balanced on a boulder in front of him and a bottle of water made out of that thin flimsy plastic laying on its side. He’s outside of a bug-out cabin Makoto and Haru had built decades ago in the event they ever needed to quickly relocate. Easy to slide that weird request in during the Cold War panicking. They thankfully keep it maintained, but it is bare bones in terms of mortal comforts.</p><p>He won’t lie to himself, though. The chicken is pretty good.</p><p>There’s no telling how long they’re safe for, if they’re safe at all. The word “probably” did a lot of heavy lifting again when Haru answered that, too. <em>Probably,</em> Makoto being offline means he’s too weak to track down. <em>Probably,</em> when he wakes up they’ll still have some time. <em>Probably,</em> if the Fisherman knew where they were right now he’d already be here, given the weakened state of affairs. The search party he sent after them won’t return, having been destroyed. That’s as good a confirmation that Makoto and Haru are alive and well than if they had returned with them in tow as captives. When Sousuke asked Haru what they were going to do about all this, Haru fell quiet.</p><p>There isn’t a plan. All they’ll do is run and hide again. It’s not good enough.</p><p>“It’s clear to me now what Makoto sees in you,” Haru says dryly, walking up after suddenly appearing. He’s often totally gone but paradoxically never far. Sousuke gets the sense he doesn’t trust that Sousuke won’t try and sneak into Makoto’s room and has a way to keep an eye on things. He’s right not to trust him.</p><p>Haru must be sarcastically referring to the highly aesthetically attractive tableau before him of Sousuke’s blanket-wrapped plaid houseware ensemble in holy matrimonial composition with a box of chicken on a boulder. Sousuke is not aided by his terrible posture, too worn out and banged up to hold himself upright. It must be a sight.</p><p>“I needed some air.”</p><p>“It’s too cold out here for you.”</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Not like you’re keeping it warm in there. It’s basically the same.”</p><p>Haru’s mouth pulls to one side. Today he’s in his signature uniform, short sleeves over jeans. He must have quickly abandoned any earnest attempt to dress appropriately as he's been running night errands for Sousuke in public. He joins Sousuke on his log, albeit at the opposite end.</p><p>“I’m not very good at this.”</p><p>“You’re fine.” Sousuke leans more over his knees, hands hanging clasped between them. “Good news for you, if I leave the food out overnight it’s cold enough to keep for breakfast.”</p><p>Haru grimaces. “You’re so disgusting.”</p><p>“You make it too easy. Can’t resist.”</p><p>“Most people here have a lactose intolerance,” he says seemingly out of nowhere. “You’re not special.”</p><p>Sousuke raises an eyebrow. Is it… small talk? “It’s an allergy, not an intolerance. I just keep it vague so I don’t need to explain it. Bad ice breaker with people I’m trying to make myself attractive to.”</p><p>“What does that mean for you?”</p><p>“Bad hives.” He smiles a little. “Have you been learning things for me, Haru?”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>Some heaviness falls off his heart. Hopefully Haru doesn’t loathe this because he needs a distraction, even a few seconds’ worth. “Is there blood you don’t like? Or can’t have?”</p><p>Haru shakes his head. “It’s if there’s life in it. Not the taste. The fishing gets me by. Human life is best for demons.”</p><p>“Now <em>that </em>is an attractive ice breaker.”</p><p>“It’s hit or miss,” Haru replies without skipping a beat. “Some people are into that.”</p><p>“Who?” Sousuke chuckles. “The Indian werewolves?”</p><p>Unshaken and unsurprised Makoto told him that. “<em>Especially</em> the Indian werewolves. I spent a few years with them for a reason.”</p><p>Sousuke’s chuckle catches and he laughs hard enough to hurt himself. He clutches at a bruised patch of ribcage and breathes through it. What a weird guy. “Sounds uh… intense.”</p><p>“Don’t be jealous, Sousuke.”</p><p>Another round of laughter and a cloud of condensation. Impressive clap back. “Touché. Now stop making me laugh, it hurts.”</p><p>He smirks. “I never get to brag about that. Makoto says I have to wait another year before I can brag to him about it again.”</p><p>It prompts a thought. “Do you guys ever get bored of each other?” Sousuke asks. If anyone has insight into how long two people can stand each other, it’s them. And Sousuke sure has reconsidered his definition of forever lately. “You’ve spent years apart.”</p><p>“Yes, many times. But I don’t think boredom is the right way to look at it,” Haru muses with his chin pointed into the night. “Forever is a long time. Nothing is truly static, everything is new again eventually.”</p><p>Maybe Sousuke is bereft of hope for anyone’s happy ending and reading too much into his statement, or maybe Haru is suggesting there is always hope and he is just not the type to say it outright. He looks to the cabin, a new pain seizing him up. “This curse is exhausting. I never stop wanting to see him. I’ll kick that door down if you leave.”</p><p>“Consider you already know where he is, and you’re already doing what you need to do to help him.”</p><p>Sousuke furrows his brow in confusion and side glances Haru. “And?”</p><p>Haru shrugs. “You’re obedient insofar as you’re doing as much as you can and not resisting. You wouldn’t be pulled on to do any more. So... you might just want to see him. You, the mortal. Not you, the familiar.”</p><p>“...Oh.”</p><p>“I do too.”</p><p>The hurt grows then, making his heart beat slow and hard until it’s a black hole in his chest, pulling everything in. He grunts and clutches over it. It’s a different sort of darkness than what he’s gotten used to. What he got used to was darkness with a light switch just out of reach only Makoto could flip. This is darkness beckoning him to lie down and drown in it. It’s helplessness and abandonment. It’s whatever Makoto is waking up feeling, right now.</p><p>“I think we woke him up,” he strains through the burn. “Or I’m having a heart attack.”</p><p>Haru’s on his feet in a blink. “<em>Stay,” </em>he commands from multiple dimensions in a menacing way Sousuke hasn’t felt since the night they first met. Definitely a threat. He steps into nowhere, leaving Sousuke on his log.</p><p>“Fuck that,” Sousuke mutters.</p><p>He gathers the food and waste and returns indoors with as much haste as he can pull off, not a winning display of agility overall but the distance isn’t insurmountable. The cabin is small, its two bedrooms close and feeding into the central area. Haru’s already in the bedroom with the door closed. Sousuke can hear a high-frequency ringing. It’s Makoto’s mirages, but they’re all wrong, and the torturous pitch quickly needles a sting behind Sousuke’s eyes.</p><p>Haru doesn’t understand that distress forces them together. Well he does, but he doesn’t <em>understand</em>. Sousuke can help, this is one thing he can do, the one thing he has lost his free will to do. It’s what he <em>wants </em>to do.</p><p>He stands in front of the door, ready to throw it open.</p><p>And doesn’t.</p><p>He drops his hand back to his side. If he does it, Haru will shove him into one of his shadows and dump him into the ocean before he can say a word. He was warned, and Haru likely isn’t the type to warn twice. Not over something so delicate. Not over Makoto.</p><p>Rather anticlimactic, Sousuke opts to clean up and go to bed.</p><p>For the first time in days he doesn’t immediately pass out as soon as he lies flat. In part, for some time, he hears the ringing blocking out his access to whatever is going on in Makoto’s room. It’s causing a splitting headache now, but one he can’t find the selfishness to complain about. The other half of it is the despair invading his thoughts, and how badly he wishes he could tell Makoto he doesn’t have to feel that way. Nothing was destroyed that wasn’t already trying to destroy them. Makoto is still Makoto. Sousuke and Haru see no one else.</p><p>But over time that ringing fades. Lulled away, with intermittent resurgent spikes, as Makoto fights unconsciousness. The acute anguish in Sousuke’s heart relents, supplanted by dull melancholia. Makoto’s dissolving mirage is a passing stranger in the night with a soft melody, rising above it. It plucks and flows within the room, its familiar lapping waves muffled into the wooden walls. Haru’s music. And, in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep, Sousuke’s impossible knowing of what goes unsung.</p><p>
  <em>—Only you can make all this world seem right</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Only you can make the darkness bright</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Only you and you alone—</em>
</p><p>Couldn’t have said it better himself.</p><hr/><p>Haru plays and plays, long into the night, until such a time he deems their world in balance again. Sousuke is not wholly conscious for most of his performance, but he is wide awake when the music stops.</p><p>Maybe Haru believes Sousuke has fallen asleep, lulled too by his music so deep he feels he can leave and be back before anyone re-awakens. That or Haru has no choice, and after many days tending nonstop to two people, using his world-rending abilities to move silly things like clothes, he must feed and recuperate now that he knows Makoto is all right. Either way, the room is brighter as is the case when Haru retreats totally from a space and takes his monster with him; Sousuke knows Haru is really gone this time, not just nearby.</p><p>Also taking advantage of the opportunity is Makoto. He is also gone.</p><p>A part of him, admittedly the risk-averse majority of him, begs for rationality. Listen to Haru, who knows what he’s saying and has dealt with this before. Wait, Sousuke. Don’t go after him. But quite simply, he doesn’t feel like listening. Proving to himself, proving to Makoto, that nothing has changed between them, moves him. His burning need to apologize for putting Makoto in that situation to begin with undermines his already flimsy sense of self-preservation. He won’t lose what they’ve built and he won’t let Makoto think for one second it’s gone.</p><p>It’s a dark violet pre-dawn. If Haru is hunting, he will be back soon. Sousuke ignores his body’s cries of protest and layers up out of the loungewear as quickly as he can. He follows the tug in his chest, quietly marvels at how normal and right it is, and damns himself once more for allowing himself to be fooled that night by anything but.</p><p>Into the woods after Makoto once more.</p><p>Sousuke glides, by comparison. There is no doubt tripping him up or confusing his thoughts. He doesn’t need to see Makoto to know the pull towards him is real this time. The ground is forgiving, the cold holds back. Makoto wasn’t far ahead of Sousuke, and Sousuke catches up to him through a break in the treeline after an incline hike he wasn’t exactly ready for, but won’t stop until he’s at the top to catch his breath.</p><p>He never catches it. As soon as he crests the edge, Makoto grabs him and slams him into the nearest tree and holds him there. Makoto’s monster does, anyway. Makoto never touches him. He holds Sousuke at a distance, his outline frozen in place.</p><p>Sousuke gasps through the restraints, more a consequence of having the wind knocked out of him than Makoto attempting to suffocate him. It agitates his wounds, potentially drawing blood from any number of them that Makoto already smells.</p><p>“I needed to get away from you. <em>Why</em> are you here?” Makoto asks, heavily haunted. Striated too. Struggling to keep himself there.</p><p>“To see—” The pressure tightens. <em>Now </em>it’s aggressive. “—<em>you</em>,” Sousuke soundlessly finishes.</p><p>Makoto backs up, unsure on his feet. He wobbles like he’s drunk. He shakes his head and fights to keep his momentum. Sousuke should be regretting his decision by now. The rational side would. But he’s not listening to that side. “Makoto—”</p><p><em>“No.” </em>Distorted.</p><p>“Come here.” Squeeze. He coughs. “<em>You won’t do it.”</em></p><p>“Sousuke,” Makoto begs, “please reconsider.”</p><p>Even now, he won’t order Sousuke to do anything, not even for his own good. He pulls at the nothing constraining his neck, swatting at air. “I <em>did</em>- and- <em>I—” </em>gasp, choke, “still- want to- fucking<em>- see you.”</em></p><p>“I’m <em>not—” </em>Makoto doesn’t finish. He rightens, mechanically so. Shit. He’s lost one battle. He starts that slow and measured walk that Sousuke has seen too many times by now, coming for him once more. But Sousuke’s nerves hold steady. Makoto isn’t going to hurt him.</p><p>The demon might, though.</p><p>A demon in Makoto’s skin leans in close to Sousuke’s face. “Good to see you again.” In mockery of his predicament, Sousuke’s acute strangulation relents and restores his voice.</p><p>“Makoto, listen to me.”</p><p>Makoto devours him with empty green eyes, lingering on every knick and scratch from the neck up. “You don’t tell me what to do. That’s not our agreement. Look up.”</p><p>Sousuke refuses, even as his body spasms in response to his disobedience. Unimpressed, Makoto takes a finger to his chin and effortlessly forces his command through. He <em>tsks </em>as he peels away the bandage barely hanging on over the nearly-healed gash and flings it away. “I’m embarrassed for myself. You were basically dead. I could’ve had it all. How incredibly weak of me.”</p><p>“Makoto. You’re not him.”</p><p>Makoto’s laugh is chilling. “No? I didn’t have to go through your neck. Any wound would’ve done. But I couldn’t resist.”</p><p>Sousuke is momentarily stunned, and his response is watery. “Stop it. Don’t make him say that.”</p><p>Twisted mirth curls Makoto’s smile to places it should never go. Makoto knows he struck a nerve, and doubles down. “That was a personal choice. Even as you bled out, I wanted to get close to you, I wanted to imagine us... somewhere else.” He laughs again. “Isn’t that inappropriate? I hate myself for wanting you.”</p><p>Sousuke refuses to acknowledge the being before him. It’s difficult. The way he’s making Makoto’s voice speak this way is a type of cruelty Sousuke hadn’t anticipated. Focus. “You can hear me, Makoto. You’re not going to hurt me.”</p><p>It seemingly goes ignored. “But it’s good that I do, that <em>he</em> does, I suppose,” he sighs, pulling Sousuke’s head back down to look at him eye-level. He drags a thumb over Sousuke’s cheek, leaving a stinging, thin line of beading blood along its path. “I’d hate to lose this feeling, this… full heart. He has waited for you, for so long. But <em>I </em>am so hungry, Sousuke.” Closer. “You can finally free me.”</p><p>Sousuke’s resolve wavers. Makoto was somewhere in that statement. It wasn’t all a demon’s taunt. The problem is he doesn’t know which parts were him. “Makoto. You can hear me. That’s not what you want.” But he knows it doesn’t sound as confident as it did a moment ago, and Makoto’s grin is confirmation.</p><p>Makoto squeezes his jaw and wrenches his head to the side. The force pinning him tightens again, stealing his breath once more. He then laves his tongue over his mark he made, slowly and deliberately. Sousuke shudders, unable to conceal his disgust with the way this thing manipulates Makoto’s body in ways Makoto would never move. It’s not him. It’s not him. It is him. But it’s not him.</p><p>“You taste good.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>That earns him a blunt blow to his still-tender flank. The impact is a stick of dynamite exploding up and down his side, white hot heat reaching as far as down his leg. A long groan breaks down into a stuttering sob. He’ll die before he cries in front of this thing but that was rough.</p><p>“We used to work together, you know. In the beginning, when I was newly turned. All that slaughter, all that blood. We were partners. He was merciless.” The garble of pronouns is especially disconcerting. “Then we stopped eating, like a coward. I won’t let me do that again, lock me away like that. He’s a useless, weak little man. I want to ascend. I’ve been waiting.”</p><p>There. That’s where the line between who Makoto is and who Makoto thinks he is, exists. “Makoto… isn’t weak.”</p><p>Jaw forced forward again, his grip is dangerously tight now. A broken jaw is not a thing Sousuke wants to contend with. “Then where am I?”</p><p>“Right here,” Sousuke answers, carried by a flickering but unextinguished righteousness. “Makoto will not hurt me.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>“You already would’ve.” This better work, the dearth of oxygen is making him loopy. He raises his hand from his side, defying the illusion that he can’t move with all his might, and lays it along the side of Makoto’s face. It is a taunt as much as it is a foolish hope, as his throat is crushed to let nothing through when he does it. <em>“Makoto won’t hurt me,” </em>he mouths, as confidently and enunciated as he can get it past his numb, blue lips.</p><p>Makoto’s grip on him shakes as he fights to keep himself from shattering Sousuke’s jaw. The restraint around his neck holding him to the tree slackens and tightens unpredictably. Sousuke holds his hand right where it is, never averting his gaze from Makoto’s if he can help it. He bought time, that’s all he wanted to do. He had faith Makoto would find his way out if he had time to find the surface.</p><p>All at once, the pressure disappears. Sousuke crumples to the ground in a heap, momentarily delirious and fugued. Close. It was so close. He gets to his knees, folded over his thighs at his hips with his hands grasping at his coat and neck. When his breath returns well enough to allow him to move, he dares to look up and see if he did all right.</p><p>Makoto, too, has fallen to one knee and clutches similarly at his chest. He is looking at Sousuke with a devastating cocktail of mortification, horror, and torment. But it’s him. That’s all that matters. Sousuke pushes to a stand with some effort, and takes a small step towards him. In response, Makoto hurries to his feet and steps back.</p><p>Sousuke’s voice is harsh and scratchy, but it carries. “There you are.”</p><p>He’s not expecting that response. Or he’s giving up where Sousuke refuses to, as Sousuke takes another step and Makoto doesn’t try to maintain their separation. Sousuke takes another step, and another, pausing between each and searching for any good reason to stop. Makoto doesn’t give him one. Then they’re face to face, and Makoto’s sorrow up close is so unwarranted, so potent and raw. And Sousuke hasn’t really seen him in so long, it hits him only now how badly he missed him.</p><p>Sousuke wraps his arms around Makoto’s shoulders, and pulls him in tight and close. There isn’t any of the resistance Sousuke braces himself for. Instead, after a moment of stiff shock, Makoto forms to him, embracing him wholly around his middle and hooking his chin over the top of Sousuke’s shoulder. They hold this perfect junction, not too afraid to let go, but too in step to consider ending it. Curse or no curse, Sousuke is so deeply grateful he can hold him like this, after all that squandered time of refusing to consider it, and after all these close calls which would have forever denied him knowing what it could feel like once he did.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says, fulfilling the other half of his mission. “Don’t tell me not to be.”</p><p>“Okay,” Makoto lightly laughs. “I’m sorry too.”</p><p>“I won’t tell you not to be. That fuckin’ hurt.” Sousuke takes him in tighter, before Makoto can think he is being serious. He then reluctantly releases him without letting him go too far, hands braced on either side of his neck. “That wasn’t so hard.”</p><p>Makoto closes his eyes and leans into the little warmth Sousuke’s chilled hands can provide. “I could’ve killed you. I’m unstable.” He sighs and opens his eyes. “I’m not safe, Sousuke.”</p><p>“That’s my risk to take.” Makoto moves to protest and Sousuke shakes his head. “And my faith to have. I jumped in front of a truck for you after you tried to kill me the first time, remember? I am impervious to reason when it comes to you.”</p><p>Yet for Makoto, there is no faith in himself to be found in his sad smile. It’s almost enough to make Sousuke back down. “I could never forgive myself.”</p><p>“Then don’t kill me.” The lopsided grin he pulls fades just as quickly as it forms. “You know we have to make this work, Makoto. We don’t have a choice. At least let me choose to trust you. It’s what <em>I</em> want.”</p><p>Lightly manipulative perhaps, but Sousuke asserting his will appears to place Makoto at an impasse. In resignation, but as well as with the relieved lilt of letting something go: “...Okay.”</p><p>He’s only afraid because this is uncharted territory for him. Sousuke thinks this in broad terms, and doesn’t have an answer for which of them he is referring to as he works through it. Because Sousuke doesn’t know what’s next. If they’re fleeing or not, if mortality is ever possible, and if Makoto ultimately will kill him. If it means getting rid of the Fisherman, how could Sousuke blame Makoto entirely for choosing power, if it comes to that?</p><p>After all, should it work, it means Makoto cared about him enough to consider him an impossible sacrifice.</p><p>Unnoticed until this moment, the weight of Makoto’s hands on his hips is heavy. Surely Makoto feels Sousuke’s heart in lurch, never fully nesting in either the safety of his vampire nor absorbing the racing panic of envisioning too clearly what could happen to him, and soon.</p><p>“Sousuke?”</p><p>It’s a dangerous assumption. In part for Sousuke’s black box, where he hides denials and desires beyond what he deserves. Also for Makoto, who might consume him and discover Sousuke wasn’t anything to him, not even a friend, no love lost or power gained. But didn’t some part of Makoto already give his secrets away, as he mocked himself for having them? Isn’t this, right now… different?</p><p>“Did you mean it?” The question is an out, should Makoto want to seize it. Plausible deniability, and a graceful off ramp for them both. Sousuke doesn’t want him to take it, but he offers it, much the same as Makoto won’t command him to do what he feels Sousuke should do.</p><p>Makoto drops his hands from Sousuke’s hips and carefully lifts Sousuke’s hands from their brace at his neck, returning them to themselves. A once warmer than average night is frigid and miserable again, and his stomach twists into knots.</p><p>“Every word.” He steels his expression, attempting to guard himself from getting hurt for his honesty, and failing to account for his ever telling eyes. “I warned you about who I am.”</p><p>Makoto believes Sousuke has forgotten, and will now recall, the admissions of bloodlust. Sure, he remembers. Sousuke is also more recklessly distracted by his own type of hunger, and all he hears are Makoto’s confessions of want.</p><p>This dynamic shift wasn’t possible, not that long ago, and now it overtakes his every thought. An awful electricity locks him into his joints and the only words he can find are the words he’s used before. “And I warned you I’m not afraid of you.”</p><p>Their only warning is the sudden retreat of the brightened violet, before Haru pulls them into his shade. He expels them into the safety of the shelter’s common area before stepping through himself, a look of weariness on his face and exhaustion settled firmly on his back.</p><p>“Are both of you trying to die now? Because I can’t keep you on a leash forever. You’re exhausting me.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Haru,” Makoto soothes. “I needed some space. I still felt quite… ill. I feel much better now.”</p><p>Haru looks between them and resconstructs some part of what happened while he wasn’t looking. He stops his bouncing attention on Sousuke. “Then you are incredibly stupid and lucky to be alive.”</p><p>“And now we’re all stronger for it,” Sousuke pushes back. “My ass is on the chopping block no matter which way we slice it. I’m going to use this curse to our advantage, when I can.”</p><p>They do that thing. The thing where Makoto and Haru exchange glances and leave Sousuke out of the deliberations. It’s frustrating now. If he’s earned anything, it’s a seat at the table for anything concerning the rest of his entanglement in their five-hundred year old drama. “I heard you both, you know. When you talked about what would happen to me. When you talked about wanting mortality. Stop leaving me out.”</p><p>Haru immediately glares at Makoto, who stares back impassively. That unspoken conversation is as clear as day. Makoto was supposed to make their argument that night confidential. And didn’t.</p><p>“He needed to know.”</p><p>“You are infuriating.”</p><p>More clear now is what Haru meant when he insisted Makoto will always do what he wants. “Okay, that’s out of the way. So what’s the plan?” Sousuke asks.</p><p>Haru turns his glare on Sousuke. “This is not the time to discuss it.”</p><p>“When is? When Makoto slips again or when the Fisherman finds us? He tracked us down through <em>me</em>,” Sousuke says. “And since we’re recovering, he’ll find us again.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Makoto asks, genuinely puzzled.</p><p>It’s only the first time he’s been able to bring it up, he then realizes. It’s an attestation to the chaos preceding this moment, that it could have fallen to the wayside. “I kept having nightmares. I didn’t think they were anything other than stress dreams. But those feeders were hunting me through them. Once they caught me in my nightmares, they were physically here as well. It’s my fault.”</p><p>Makoto presses his lips into a line and fits Sousuke’s new information into his pre-established understanding. “No. The familiar is always a shortcut. I told you it was a sort of energy signature GPS. He felt me already, and pinned it down through you, a mortal who shouldn’t have the same energy signature as me. You would appear as a spike on a flat line.”</p><p>It’s a relief that Sousuke is open to believing. He was afraid to go to sleep again once they were recovered enough to be seen. But it takes running away off the table. “You have to confront him.”</p><p>It’s as if it never occurred to Haru or Makoto, by the way it dawns on them only then. Makoto’s answer is grave. “That’s not possible. He is immeasurably strong.”</p><p>“Then you have to kill me.” Sousuke, surprisingly, is growing irritated. “Do you want to go round and round about it? I’m a homing beacon. Why am I the one with the common sense in this situation?”</p><p>Makoto looks away. “I won’t do it.”</p><p>“Which?”</p><p>“<em>Either</em>.”</p><p>Haru is quicker to reality. “Makoto… he’s right. Those are the options.”</p><p>“Then let the Fisherman come. I’ll offer myself in exchange for you both.”</p><p>It’s immediately apparent that this will go nowhere, going by his and Haru’s repulsion to that idea. Each of them is quickly hunkering down into their respective biases and no compromise can exist in these circumstances of life and death.</p><p>Haru casts a glance towards the east and drops his forehead to meet his fingertips. “I don’t have time for this. If we’re confronting him, I’m the only one with any ability to hold my own and so I need to sleep.”</p><p>Makoto’s head snaps back, incensed. “We are <em>not—</em>”</p><p>But he’s already gone. It isn’t the time to say it out loud, but Sousuke is strangely touched that Haru assumed the correct choice was confrontation, not sacrificing the familiar. So far, that is. Subject to change. Sousuke has no doubt about Haru’s allegiances should push come to shove.</p><p>“Where does he sleep, anyway?” Sousuke muses.</p><p>Makoto doesn’t hear him, staring vacantly into the space Haru just occupied. “I’m going to be sick.”</p><p>“No you’re not. That’s mortal territory.”</p><p>“How can you joke about this?” Makoto scolds in a low whisper. His distress is measurable in Sousuke’s own body. “Sousuke, I’ve dedicated my entire life to mine and Haru’s safety. Now there’s you, too. And I don’t have a way to hold it all together anymore. I lost it all so fast, I never—” He snaps his mouth shut and shakes his head, reeling himself in. Far has he come from smiling and saying nothing, but too far from him is it for him to lose his composure in front of company. “I need time to think about what to do.”</p><p>Sousuke doesn’t have the heart to share his opinion on how fruitless he believes that will be. Time and again as Sousuke railed, Makoto stressed the very basic core binary at the middle of all this. There is a power-amassing agenda at work put into play by forces beyond any earthly comprehension of its mechanism, and it is not an agenda any single individual can cheat solely because they’re unhappy with its conditions. The game is played, one way or another. Maybe that’s why he’s joking; bluffing is the only thing he can do with the hand he’s been dealt.</p><p>“Yeah,” he answers lamely. “Let’s think about it.” He blinks against heavy eyelids. Resignation is what it is, but he’ll call it fatigue for now. “I’m going to sleep too.”</p><p>Makoto absently nods, already off in his own little world. A demon trying to make miracles happen. What a sight.</p><p>A sinking feeling in Sousuke’s gut doesn’t even register on Makoto’s soul-bound consciousness. Survival is the priority. Already behind him is that fleeting moment where there was more for them some day, somehow.</p><p>If it weren’t for the inevitability of his demise, Sousuke would reinstall a dating app at this point in the cycle.</p><hr/><p>Makoto recedes into his books. Haru disappears into the sea. Sousuke goes on forest walks in silence. All look for answers in their respective sanctuaries where there are none. Revision: Makoto and Haru have sanctuaries. Sousuke lost all of his flimsy excuses for sanctuaries. The kitchen, his home, his family. All those little hobbies and interests that were never totally his, or tied up in his obligations, are gone. If someone asked him what they were, he might stare dumbly before offering up “...cooking?”. Glaringly apparent, now stripped of his distractions, is that Sei was right. Sousuke never found his own way, he never committed to his strengths. He was too preoccupied with being alone.</p><p>What’s an identity crisis on top of everything else? Pile it on while the pity party is in full swing, why not. Everyone is entitled to a pity party at some point.</p><p>On the upswing since Makoto woke up two evenings ago, Sousuke’s recovery has fared better. Range of motion in both arms is restored and his flank wound is scarring over. He finally found the courage and mobility to twist around and give it a look. It looks like an acid burn. Despite how cool it always sounded in theory, he wishes he didn’t have a scar disfiguring a large patch of his body. He did survive a demonic hunt, so he has that victory going for him. But every time he sees too much of himself now, he’ll have to relive it.</p><p>Makoto’s recovery has been up and down since Sousuke watched him walk it back from the brink. Sousuke sees him struggle with an upsetting hunger in his eyes if they are around each other too close, for too long. Nothing he has acted on, but clearly draining to keep in check. It’s like a relapse, Sousuke figures, and this is the withdrawal. There’s the normal dull hunger Makoto is used to and then there’s that reawakened bottomless bloodlust after having had a taste of real power. Sousuke’s not worried, but he does want to give Makoto a break from thinking about it if he can.</p><p>Haru is so dialed in to monitoring Makoto’s recovery and maintaining his own energy in case he needs to fight that Sousuke easily defies his orders to stay cooped up in the cabin. Haru must agree it is the path of least maintenance for now and, darkly, if Sousuke is their most open liability, better he be a canary in a coal mine from a distance than a locked-on target providing no advanced warning of an approaching threat.</p><p>Sousuke stops at a creek he found the day prior to wash his face and fix his hair. He shivers as soon as he squats next to it, feeling the water siphon the life out of him via proximity. The splash to his face is instantly numbing. Hygiene is a constant and miserable battle out here and never has he wanted a fully hot shower with a sink that works more in his entire life. Cold on cold on cold. Air is cold. Ground is cold. Makoto is cold. Food is cold. And canned! The slow erosion of basic human comfort is taking a toll on his psyche worse than the debilitating injuries did. He’s not selfish enough to raise it with the two undead currently reckoning with their greatest fear and trauma, but he is unable to pep talk himself out of feeling personally woeful and shitty about it.</p><p>A harried reflection stares back at him in the smooth flow of the stream. It’s not detailed enough to determine if this ordeal has sprouted him any gray hair among his usually jet black crop, but he wouldn’t be surprised. He’s gaunt. Or he’s seeing a distorted reflection of what he feels. Whatever the high school student in him wants to read into it.</p><p>Sousuke scoops another double handful of water from the stream. He raises it to meet his face and stops. The slosh of it captures a vibrant red color behind him he doesn’t expect or remember should be there. Makoto wears... an American Thanksgiving palette. Haru wears black. Belatedly arrives the hair raising effect that comes with being watched. The water spills over his angled fingertips and drains back into the stream before he shakes feeling back into his hands and finds the courage to turn around.</p><p>Whatever horrible hell beast come to murder him that his imagination drummed up in those twenty seconds of unknowing pales in comparison to who he finds waiting patiently for him to notice they’re there.</p><p>“Okay what the fuck.”</p><p>“Sousuke Yamazaki,” Rin— right?— sighs. Rin, that was it. The mortal from a brisk three and one goddamned half centuries ago. “You really shook things up for everyone didn’t you?”</p><p>“It’s you. This is not happening.”</p><p>Next to Rin, Gou— he certainly remembers her— furrows her brow. “You’ve seen us before.”</p><p>His back is to a stream he would rather not cast himself into and they both perch in such a way as to block his route back. “Call it a retroactive vision. I watched you help burn an entire street down <em>centuries</em> ago.”</p><p>They’ve either forgiven themselves for it or feel nothing bad about it. It visibly moves them not. Rin only sighs. “That saves us a long winded explanation about why we’re here I guess.”</p><p>“Not really,” Sousuke snaps. “You’re mortals!” He narrows his eyes and looks for any clue this is not the case. They have red on their cheeks and noses, and are bundled up beyond what would be necessary to blend in. Mortal. Alive. In style, even, with modern hairstyles and accoutrements. Gou, in acid wash, a pink puffer jacket, and a backpack. Rin, in black denim and a heavy black coat. Both in simple jewelry and trendy sneakers and boots, respectively, looking the part of any other internet-influenced world citizen. A surreal image when compared to their peasantry class impressions in Sousuke’s memory.</p><p>“It’s an arrangement,” Rin explains flatly.</p><p>“Why didn’t you just fucking kill me when I didn’t notice you?” Sousuke laments, fully aware of how pathetic it sounds. “Are you seriously going to monologue me before you gut me or shoot me or whatever gets you off?”</p><p>“Because we aren’t here to kill you,” Gou answers. Overly calm, intentionally soothing. “We want to talk. We’re not murderers.”</p><p>Anger flares his temper. “Then what did I witness?! Did you not smoke Makoto and Haru out of their homes for the sole purpose of turning them over to a guy who <em>will</em> kill them? And all those townspeople don’t count?!”</p><p>Rin grimaces. “Can you calm down? We don’t need you summoning your discount Jekyl-Hyde vampire and his multiplanar guard dog with your hysteria. We didn’t come here to die either.”</p><p>“Rin, be nice.” Gou offers apologetic upturned palms towards Sousuke. “Will you at least listen to us if I explain? And then will you talk to us if you buy it?”</p><p>Sousuke is so knocked off his ass about this development all he can do is nod dumbly. He finds a seat on a rock to signal his truce and match their own inoffensive posturing. Can’t hurt to hear them out.</p><p>“We carry out orders from the Captain,” she begins. Fisherman, Captain, it all has the same incredibly lame mouthfeel yet ominously intangible threat to it. “You’re not wrong that we were ordered to find them, and we did. We had to. We didn’t set that quarter on fire and we weren’t told it would happen. The corrupted did that. They were supposed to remove those two peacefully and instead showed up to kill for sport. We never set anything on fire or killed anyone.”</p><p>Sousuke folds his arms. “So what? You were aware <em>they’d </em>be killed, weren’t you?”</p><p>“Of course we were. But if we didn’t do it, he promised to destroy our home town. You’ve been around Makoto and Haru long enough to know it’s what he does to get what he wants. We were complicit. We were also desperate, and we can’t disobey our curse.”</p><p>“And what about now?”</p><p>Rin takes over. “He eventually destroyed it anyway, just for fun, in case you’re worried we didn’t pay for what we did.”</p><p>Sousuke winces in response to Rin’s deadpan delivery. His resentment fizzles out. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Keep it. Gou and I are blood cursed to serve him,” Rin explains as he lazily waves his hand through prepared remarks. “We’re not vamps, we’re not familiars. We are powerless mortals with a couple of party tricks living out a sentence. When we are done, we’ll be released to live out whatever nightmare-filled life we have left. Which, if you’re keeping score with how often the Captain does the right thing, will be never.”</p><p>“I ah, didn’t know familiar-lite was an option.”</p><p>He doesn’t like that term, but can’t seem to find an alternative. “We have no love for him. Hell didn’t choose us to protect and serve him like it did with you and yours. We made a deal with him, to save our father, who was turned. He was a leader in our village. Our people needed him, not us.” Rin tilts his head side-to-side to work a crick out of his neck. “You can thank Haru for turning dear old dad. Once you do that, you might forgive us our willingness to cooperate at first.”</p><p>“Shit,” Sousuke breathes. “How? They weren’t feeding by then.”</p><p>“It’s a bigger timeline than you’re equipped to default to. They did their shit for a while before getting out. By the time we caught up with them in Edo, they’d only been on their own for about seventy years, nowhere near the hundred plus they spent with Cap. Dad was one of their last turns before they split. We tracked the Captain down and offered ourselves however we could be used, for whatever term, for his exorcism. Hell is quite partial to ultimate sacrifice, if you didn’t know. Captain needed tools to track down his newly fled deserters. A couple of mortals at his beck and call he figured would be useful.”</p><p>Exorcism. Mortal. They brokered an agreement to make their father <em>mortal</em> again. Sousuke’s breath quickens. “...And your father?”</p><p>Rin looks past Sousuke into the creek, into his past. Gou delivers the punch. “He didn’t survive the exorcism.”</p><p>And inversely, Sousuke’s breath stops in his throat. “No.”</p><p>“We never stipulated his release had to, y’know, <em>work</em>.” Rin laughs bitterly. “The devil is in the details, as they say.”</p><p>Sousuke teeters on the edge of a new genre of despair he didn’t know existed. There is a loophole. Hell is imperfect. He was correct this whole time. Yet he didn’t finish thinking his assumption through to its logical end. In the face of despair, Sousuke pivots to a more narrow focus. “What happened to make it fail?”</p><p>Rin shrugs, rather nonchalant. “Fuck if we know.” And seeing Sousuke’s bewilderment in response to his tone, “It was hundreds of years ago.”</p><p>“It was your father.” Which sounds disingenuous as soon as it leaves his mouth, for a guy who doesn’t remember his own.</p><p>“You can love someone all you want but after enough time goes by, you start looking back at someone else’s hap-dash jumbled memories. You forget faces first. Eventually you forget names. And finally you forget about ‘uh, that one farmer with the wife’ entirely, even if that ‘one farmer’ was integral to your life and survival at one point. Lovers, family, friends.” He bursts his fingers outwards as two little fireworks. “Poof.”</p><p>Gou doesn’t protest his framing or insist her experience otherwise, lending legitimacy to Rin’s somewhat cynical interpretation of the human condition. Who is Sousuke to challenge it, especially if he can’t exactly find a reason not to believe it in its strictest sense?</p><p>Rin sinks back into himself. “Anyway. There’s your origin story. Can we move on?”</p><p>This all being the case, then, leaves Sousuke in flux. They’re victims. Responsible for their actions, and confined by their insurmountable circumstances. Where has he seen that before? “Fine,” he concedes. “I already knew this clusterfuck was an ethical nightmare anyway. I can have a crisis about it later. So what do you want with me?”</p><p>The diplomatic Gou takes over. “We want you to come with us and force a confrontation. We can control that confrontation better if we have you working with us.”</p><p>It does not move him, emotionally or otherwise. “Uh huh. Okay. And why would I agree to the only plan that sounds like certain death for everyone on my side?”</p><p>She squares her shoulders, like she’s been practicing the pitch. “We’re tired of this. We’ve upheld our end.” There is a dullness to them now, not in their appearance but in their presence, that Sousuke can’t call woe or sadness. Deeper than any transient emotional state. “This is the first chance we’ve had since that night in Edo to end this for good. We’ve talked through every outcome we could think of. The only scenario we feel there’s a chance for all three of us to walk away from this is if you help us kill the Captain and his First Mate.”</p><p>It says nothing for Makoto’s and Haru’s chances, but Sousuke isn’t the reactive type without all the information to react to. “How you figure that?”</p><p>Rin sighs. “Simply said, you’re irresistible live bait—”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“—<em>Meaning</em> Makoto will come for you, and the Captain won’t kill you as long as he can leverage you to get Makoto to come to him. You’re just a tool to him. We don’t care about Makoto. What matters is he will keep you <em>close</em>, closer than we can get. Closer than <em>anyone </em>has gotten. When you get a chance, you’ll stab the Captain clean through his heart.”</p><p>It comes on in a flash. A full-throated and side-splitting, zero to one-hundred guffaw, until Sousuke’s voice breaks and he doubles forward on wheezing, torturous gasps. It scatters the birds from the surrounding trees and carries over the sound of the creek. His muscles cramp and his eyes water and he can’t keep his shoes flat on the ground. It is, without a doubt, the single most batshit delusional thing he has ever heard. Ever. After two weeks of nonstop world-shattering upheaval, his internal emotional breaker box finally fucking trips.</p><p>He comes down in bursts of ragged chuckles and drags the heels of his palms to the corners of his eyes. Deep breaths for the ache in his abdominals. Finally, he can unroll and unbunch his shoulders, and look these two dead in the eyes, placidly calm. “You guys are funny.”</p><p>They are, impressively, undeterred by his outburst. Rin is irritated, but keeping it in check. “Are you finished?”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, continue.”</p><p>“You know what ascending is?”</p><p>“Super demon.”</p><p>“Right. So Cap believes he hasn’t got his hand-written invitation to join hell yet because he let his blood-abstaining underling pull a fast one on him. Unbecoming, I guess, when power and order and vice and such are the employee of the month virtues. He wants this reunion with your buddy more than anything, to remove that obstacle.”</p><p>And Makoto wants to go alone and defenseless. Now these two have more than his humor.</p><p>Rin absently gestures his way through his explanation while Gou picks up fallen leaves and folds them into little squares. “The guy is a monster. It’s easy to talk about him like some cunning mind with a sophisticated agenda. But he isn’t. He hasn’t been for a long time. He’s decrepit and cruel and awful. He would’ve shown up in the flesh within days of him finding you and pulverized all three of you if he could have. He’s not stable. Stronger than anything in his mind, but tunnel visioned and irrational and falling apart, literally. He’s old as shit and should’ve returned to hell ages ago but he’s stuck.”</p><p>“Stuck? That’s anticlimactic. Why’s that?”</p><p>“Rooted. Literally. The ship is his body, to preserve him. He can’t leave his quarters anymore. But you can get to him, with our help. And if you succeed, our curse is broken.”</p><p>“And mine?”</p><p>“Who’s to say?” Rin turns his palms up to the sky. “I said you’d <em>live</em>.”</p><p>Haru’s warning finds him then. “I was told there’d be a power void, and that lesser demons would rally to fill it.”</p><p>“I don’t know anything about that,” Rin says, honest at least and not in any underhanded way to suggest he was planning to keep that from Sousuke. “But if that’s the case I sure hope you can run fast because it sounds like you’ll be the Tuesday special on the menu if your captor is there when it happens.”</p><p>Sousuke can’t be offended by that hypothesis. His workshopped plan was allowing Makoto to kill him in the first place, a concept he vascilitates between being resigned to or horrified by depending on how open he is to thinking about literal, permanent death. The problem with that plan being Makoto won’t do it. That leaves Haru’s plan to go alone, which turns into Makoto’s plan anyway, because Makoto would go after him. Cyclical.</p><p>These two are correct. This is the only idea with any marginal level of success even if it is a long shot. One glaring problem. Sousuke’s no killer, no fighter, no demon hunter, no vampire hunter. The most violent he’s ever been is at work, cleaning already dead fish he didn’t catch. Vampires, demons, and a consciously structured hell did not exist to him two weeks ago and now he’s working over an idea wherein he alone kills one of the worst and strongest culmination of the three. And if he fails to do it, they’re all done.</p><p>Sousuke pulls his coat up closer to his ears and layers the fabric over his chest. “You’re asking a lot of me and you have no idea who I am or if I’m capable of it.”</p><p>“You’re right,” Gou agrees. “But time and options are limited. We’ve stalled as long as we can, letting you recover from his attack, but we can’t pretend we can’t find you for much longer. The Captain knows you’re here. He wants you now that he knows Makoto will come for you, we have orders. The difference is now you know you won’t be alone, if you can trust we’re not lying to you.”</p><p>It’s not a sensible pecking order. “Not that I want him to, but he can’t just skip me and take Makoto? Not like I’m gonna be able to put up much of a fight.”</p><p>“We’re servants, not allies. We do as we’re told.” She points to her head. “He talks to us at a distance. We haven’t <em>seen </em>him or his First Mate in centuries.”</p><p>They don’t know why. “Right.”</p><p>Well. There is no reason to lie. Their order is to bring him back and they confessed to it. Sousuke will willingly go, this is the only difference. Whether or not they uphold their word and help him at the end is irrelevant, ultimately. Like every other plan, its outcome is unknowable.</p><p>He searches the ground for a way out. He’s not up to this task. But to be read between the lines here, they’re not giving him a choice in going or not. Only in cooperating with them. “How long do I have before you need me to leave with you?”</p><p>“You don’t.”</p><p>If he acknowledges the panic this floods him with, does it make it more or less noticeable to Makoto? For all of his complaining, the idea that this moment in stasis in the woods will abruptly end with no closure is arresting. “I need to say goodbye.”</p><p>“Why?” Rin presses, thin eyebrow quirked. “It’s midday right now. It’s a clean getaway if we stick to the sunlight.”</p><p>How does he explain to two damaged humans, rightfully critical of hell’s dominion, that he <em>likes</em> his vampires without sounding deranged? That the thought of losing them forever is enough to reconsider his stance on running away? His fear must reflect in his eyes, as he freezes up in search for a palatable excuse. A sneer overtakes Rin’s face, and Gou’s features pinch in confusion.</p><p>“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.”</p><p>“Look. I’ve been spending all my time trying to figure out a way to convince Makoto to kill me or turn me or somehow stay with him, all right? I’m well past the rebellion stage, I want them to survive even if it means I don’t. They’re good people.”</p><p>This was not the diplomatic answer Sousuke hoped it would be. Rin ignites. “You think some goddamned soulless murderer is capable of caring about you enough that your sacrifice would do jack-fucking-shit?” he spits, all razor teeth.</p><p>Gou turns to calm him. “<em>Rin</em>.”</p><p>He shakes his head in defiance of her intervention. His practiced reservation is nowhere to be found. “He doesn’t care about you. He <em>can’t</em>. You’re a tasty little distraction, you’re nothing to them but two-dimensional stand-in for the humanity they already pissed away and if it’s between you and one of them, you will always lose. You were always the obvious sacrifice.”</p><p>“That’s not true,” Sousuke rebuts reflexively even as he recalls his own suspicions and worries confirming the same. A part of Makoto said as much while he tried to suffocate Sousuke: all wanting Sousuke is good for is power. That’s only part of Makoto, though. A sick part. Stick to the facts, Sousuke. “Both of them have protected me when they didn’t have to.”</p><p>“Both of them need you obedient and content like a fuckin’ lap dog until they can use you properly. That’s what they care about. I don’t see your <em>master </em>willfully falling on a stake to release you from your servitude, do you?”</p><p>Sousuke isn’t this insecure, not by a longshot. Rin has been hurting for a long time. Of course he feels this way. Sousuke takes care to keep his responses even and brief. Gou looks on, tense but jumping to no one’s defense. “I wouldn’t want him to. It’s not his fault this happened to me.”</p><p>“Isn’t it?!” Rin shouts. “Did you actively seek out a vampire to leash yourself to? Or did they get you into this situation in the first place to save their own skins? Did you already forget what Haru did to our father? He did it to save him and Makoto, after all that murder they were supposedly so <em>sorry</em> for they still chose themselves.”</p><p>True, they were going to kill him to save themselves. But Makoto stopped Haru. Then they were going to let him go. They couldn’t have known about the familiar cursing that would happen after that. Facts, Sousuke. “They couldn’t afford their secret getting out while your boss was still out there. They were right to be afraid. He tortured them exactly how he’s tortured you.” A lifeline finds him here. “As if you two haven’t done bad shit to protect each other? Do you really not understand their impossible choices? They’ve atoned.”</p><p>“Don’t you dare compare us to them.” Rin looks down his nose at him with contempt. It’s jarring, despite the rationalizing Sousuke is using to forgive him his warranted spite. “What, was five-hundred years of doing whatever the fuck they wanted to not enough of a ride? They’ve atoned? Give me a break. They are selfish. They are monsters. They all are. You’re just collateral damage, Sousuke, and it’s pathetic that you have deluded yourself into thinking you’re anything to them. Anything he feels for you will evaporate as soon as he needs it to. His affections are a currency for power. It’s not real.”</p><p>Sousuke folds under the pressure of Rin’s intensity and finally looks down and away. “You can believe what you want. What I believe is… they let you go.”</p><p>Rin is silent.</p><p>“Haru attacked his friend to save you <em>after </em>you hunted them down. Makoto attacked his friend to protect me when we’d only just met. Haru wore himself to exhaustion to find me a fucking toothbrush. Makoto…” He keeps Makoto for himself, unwilling to allow Rin an opportunity to poison their time together. “Makoto won’t hurt me. Those are the two I want to say goodbye to, not the two you think they are.”</p><p>Now Gou chooses her side, having distilled their argument down to its essence: “He can’t love you, Sousuke.”</p><p>“Of course he can’t.” Sousuke shocks himself. His agreement tumbles out of his mouth into a pile of defeat on the forest floor. Truths always reveal themselves under pressure. “I don’t care.”</p><p>Rin clicks his tongue and throws in the towel on it. “Whatever.”</p><p>Sousuke doesn’t resent him for his views, far from it. They’re the ones who came to him and prioritized his survival too; they’re doing what they think is right, based on what they’ve experienced. He would try to argue anyone out of a similar situation if he were coming at it from another side. They can call him delusional. He understands. It is very fucking delusional to consider these fantasies.</p><p>But what they don’t understand is two things can be true. Makoto and Haru will protect each other first, it’s all they’ve ever had or known. They also have had the opportunity to kill all three of the mortals sitting at this creek debating their hearts and minds, three mortals posing the most acute threat to their existence at multiple points in history, and they have not.</p><p>“I think it’s okay if we wait another day,” Gou carefully says. “Regardless what anyone here believes. There’s no sense forcing you to leave with us now if it means you’re distracted and upset.”</p><p>Rin scoffs. “This is a waste of time.”</p><p>“You’re upset too, Rin,” Gou chides. “So am I. Let’s collect ourselves and be at our best. This is for all of us.” She stands and helps Rin to his feet as well. He doesn’t protest further. “Tomorrow, then. We’ll find you.”</p><p>Sousuke nods. “I’ll be wherever that is.”</p><p>She regards him thoughtfully even as Rin stomps off into the nowhere they came from. “For whatever it’s worth, Rin is the one who was tasked to keep an eye on you. He could’ve forced you with us days ago when you were all weakened. He must’ve seen something worth leaving you alone for. Despite what he says.”</p><p>Sousuke watches her go, waiting until the distant snapping twigs beneath their shoes is no longer audible before he moves from his rock. Strangely, he feels no grief for his conclusions about Makoto. He was already at this point two mornings ago, watching Makoto understandably worry about things bigger than Sousuke. Rin and Gou only helped him say it out loud and give it form.</p><p>It isn’t rejection. It is simply the circumstances. Makoto may want to, but he can’t love a mortal. Not with that demon wanting Sousuke, too. Makoto won’t hurt him, so Makoto can’t love him. He isn’t thinking of love in some contrived fairytale sense either. Just its basic form. The love Makoto has for Haru, or the love Sousuke has helplessly watched fade from his life over the years from the few people he has who gave it to him.</p><p>Now it’s out of the way and out of his mind. He can focus on helping, and stop worrying about what he is, can be, and can never be to Makoto. It doesn’t change how he feels, anyway. It doesn’t change what he’s going to do. He’ll still have regrettably fallen for someone who he can’t have. That revelation is obvious to him for the first time, even as he comes upon it late and as a truth long established and overgrown. Is that love? Some form of it, sure. No one thinks about how willing they are to give themselves over to a cause without love being involved.</p><p>If he can pull this off and help Makoto and Haru be rid of their tormentor, he can be proud of that. Rin and Gou deserve his help, too. They all showed up for him, one way or another. Sousuke will give his all to have been worth it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. ask and you shall receive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The finality in the air that night is not only Sousuke’s contribution. He doesn’t return until after the sun goes down and Haru wakes up, in the interest of staying out of Makoto’s way, emotionally. He doesn’t necessarily trust himself either. Saying goodbye to anyone is hard enough. Not being able to actually say it is awful. Makoto would speak to him for, likely, the last time and Sousuke wouldn’t be able to respond how he wants to. Sousuke can lie well in circumstances such as these. He would rather not have to lie directly to Makoto without Haru there to make it feel less personally gut wrenching.</p><p>Waiting to return also allows Makoto and Haru their private conversation, wherein they will agree to go confront the Fisherman together, and leave Sousuke behind. Sousuke knows enough about them now to assume this with confidence. By the way they both look at him when he walks in, he knows he arrives just as they agree to do it. There is guilt in their eyes, for their own lie they’ve agreed to.</p><p>He will play his convincing part, and act like he doesn’t have a clue. Easy. The hard part is keeping them here for the night, so they go tomorrow night. Long after Sousuke is gone.</p><p>“How goes the stalemate?” Sousuke greets them where they sit at the common area table.</p><p>“How many times do I have to ask you to stay here?” Haru doesn’t answer.</p><p>“Shit I forgot.” He snaps for effect. Better this than arguing about plans.</p><p>Makoto sighs. There’s some worry there, which does shame Sousuke somewhat. “He’s right, Sousuke. You were gone all day.”</p><p>Which implies Makoto is also aware there is a giant black hole opening up between them since the other morning. Uncertainty necessitates a wide berth, even if he was worried Sousuke could get into trouble. But this explanation, he can be half honest about. “We all needed space. Your fussy houseplant also needs water, air, and sunlight. The constant dark and cold is getting to me and I thought I’d deal with all my issues at once.”</p><p>Sousuke believes it will lighten the mood to frame it with humor, but all it does is further reinforce how precarious his position is. Makoto in particular reads it that way, dredging up old haunts on his face Sousuke hasn’t seen since the first few days, a lifetime ago by now. When Sousuke was too different, too unknown, and must be handled with caution and care.</p><p>“This has been so difficult on you,” Makoto sighs. “Even when we try to be attentive. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Somehow a joke here about killing him so they don’t have to worry about it anymore feels gauche, even for him. “We’re gonna work it out.” This also doesn’t stick its landing.</p><p>If he’s not careful, he’ll walk himself into a situation where he’s helped make the tense mood so untenable that Makoto and Haru will leave tonight no matter what he says. Sousuke needs a better handle on the narrative he wants to play out. It means he needs to get Makoto and Haru on the bargaining end, not him. Despite being very bad at it if his whole life is anything to go by, Sousuke needs to actively bridge the growing divide between him and people he cares about to pull this off.</p><p>“Look,” he sighs. “I know, at the very least, whatever you decide to do, you don’t plan on involving me in it. Is that safe to say?”</p><p>Makoto moves to soften the landing. “It’s just that—”</p><p>Sousuke calms him with a staying hand. “I get it. I hate it, and I’m not letting it go. But I get it. What am I gonna do, chase after Haru’s shadow on foot? I don’t have a lot of leverage. You’re going to fuckin’ leave me behind.” They are visibly uncomfortable with his plain terms, but don’t deny it. “You guys are going to be okay. I believe that, and unless you want me to figure out how to force Makoto to make a blood bong out of my punctured aorta, you’ll let me believe that.” Haru snorts. Sousuke nods his appreciation. “Just don’t insult me by waiting until I go take a piss or something screwed up like that to ditch me.”</p><p>Perhaps Sousuke didn’t give them enough credit coming into this conversation. They didn’t want to tell him their plan right away, that much was true. But they weren’t planning on abandoning him abruptly, either. “...Haru actually had an idea, if you’re agreeable to allowing us to rather conspicuously let you down easy as we planned.”</p><p>“It wasn’t my idea.”</p><p>Something that takes time, something he can push into the night. “As long as we’re not sharing blood smoothies again I’m probably fine with it.”</p><p>“That’s why it wasn’t my idea.”</p><p>Makoto shakes his head. “Not anything like that. Trust us?”</p><p>Haru rolls his eyes and stands, shadow flooding out from his feet. “His dumb ass goaded your demon into killing him. I think we’re past trust.”</p><p>Can’t argue with that. Haru drags them down into the rift.</p>
<hr/><p>Upon revisit, The Last Drop’s dungeon aesthetic is charming. Cheeky, even. It’s a slow burning joke Sousuke can newly appreciate. Makoto has an impeccable sense of humor, if one knows where to look for it.</p><p>Makoto is behind his bar, leaning forward and braced by his forearms. Haru is in his shrouded corner, plucking out melody fragments on his unfussy guitar, transcribing something in real time. Sousuke has not seen either of them so comfortably blended into their surroundings in days. Makoto with his barriers, Haru with his shadows. Sousuke, their lone and humbly seated patron, slouches to the right onto his elbow, half listening to Haru suss out his choice tonight, half in Makoto’s space to be near him but in a cool way.</p><p>“What can I get you?”</p><p>Sousuke fully twists and looks behind Makoto to contemplate his options. His initial reaction is to turn the offer down, but there is also something therapeutic in playing the part and Makoto is eager for his answer.</p><p>“Shochu. Neat.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>Sousuke fully spins on his seat to face him. “What does that mean?”</p><p>Makoto reaches below the bar for two half glasses and sets both up. “You ordered a cheap lager before. Usually the light beer types don’t immediately spring for undiluted spirits.”</p><p>“The occasion feels appropriate.”</p><p>He nods and turns to his stocked glass shelves, lit up from beneath, and hovers a finger across his choices before choosing none of them. Instead from an overhead cabinet he reveals a dark red spherical glass bottle slapped over with stylized, caligraphied wards and labels. From a small refrigerator next to the shelves, he pulls a pitcher. He sets both next to the glasses and tugs at a knot of twine tying down a square of wave-printed silk, exposing a waxed cork when removed. Sousuke does not know a thing about alcohol qualities, but he is certain the bottle alone is worth more than he is, to say nothing of its contents.</p><p>“Don’t waste that on me.”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t I?” Makoto wonders, digging beneath the bar to Sousuke’s left for something else. From the back of his reach, he excavates an old switchblade with a tarnished handle and flips it open with a flick, to Sousuke’s unvarnished delight. “What good is it stuffed in a cabinet, waiting for some undefined perfect time?” He tips the blade to the wax.</p><p>“You should save it for when you can have it.”</p><p>Makoto looks up, blade halted mid-pull. The blank expression is its own reveal; that’s exactly what this was originally for. He thaws out and huffs a stunted laugh, then returns to his task. “Wouldn’t be the first bottle I saved for decades then gave away. I’ll get another one.”</p><p>He whittles the wax off bit by bit until he gets through and slips the blade under the bulk of the seal well enough to peel it back in its entirety. He discards the wax to the side, and finally uses the blade to uncork the bottle with an angled stab and a firm upward coaxing until it squeaks free. In one glass Makoto pours him a standard to precision. The other glass, he fills halfway with water. He slides both to Sousuke, and re-corks the shochu.</p><p>In the undercurrent of this, Haru finds his song.</p><p>The sip Sousuke takes is incredibly strong for his mild, untrained tastes. The flavors are deep and rich and its potency is skull-numbing. It goes down smooth, but smooth in the way a spark tears down a line of gunpowder, and quickly spreads its warmth out from his center. He doesn’t immediately chase it with water, bravely following it up with another sip that he’s ready for and enjoys on its merits without the shock factor. Then he takes his water and dilutes the acrid build up on his tongue.</p><p>“How is it?”</p><p>
  <em>—Unforgettable, that's what you are<br/>
</em>
  <em>Unforgettable though near or far—</em>
</p><p>The water slips down the wrong way and makes him cough when he jerks his head to the side to glare at Haru across the room. He can’t see Haru’s reaction, but feels every smug note and teasing percussive thump to venture a guess. He returns his attention to the one not trying to inverse-Siren him. Does Makoto hear these phantom lyrics or is it just for Sousuke’s torture?</p><p>“Uh, complex.”</p><p>Makoto chuckles. “Don’t feel obligated to finish it.”</p><p>He lifts and tips the glass towards Makoto and throws the other half of the drink back. Bad move, immediately so, but there’s no backing down unless he wants to spit it out. “Don’t mock me.”</p><p>Graciously, Makoto does not comment on his shudder. He’s quite pleased with the interaction for its own sake. “Can I get you anything else?”</p><p>Warm slush rises as high as his ears. He swaps to the water. “Any more than that and I’ll fall asleep. I’m a boring drunk. Thank you, though.” Makoto nods and tops off his water. Meticulously observant.</p><p>
  <em>—And forever more<br/>
</em>
  <em>That's how you'll stay—</em>
</p><p>“I’m a cheap lager guy, huh? I almost left a terrible impression on you.”</p><p>“It wasn’t that.” Makoto realizes he’ll now have to say what it was. “You just… you were different.”</p><p>Genuinely unexpected, both in Sousuke’s personal experiences with others and from what he’s come to expect of Makoto speaking directly to his inner thoughts. “Huh?”</p><p>If Makoto could blush, he’d match Sousuke’s pleasantly buzzed airbrushing. The quick to stiff set of his shoulders gives that away. “You were curious and very stubborn about it. A strange combination. And um, handsome, I suppose.”</p><p>From Makoto, it’s as good as if he had said Sousuke were the finest human specimen he ever laid eyes on. Five hundred years allows for an unquantifiable number of opportunities to meet highly attractive people of course, but registering on Makoto’s radar is its own accomplishment. “Uncommitted, but I’ll take it. I’d tell you I thought the same, but you were determined not to let me. Nice eyes, though.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Guilt weighs his frown. “I’m sure you understand why I didn’t let you now.”</p><p>Sousuke shakes his head. “I’m glad it happened.” A beat later, the gravitas of what he says settles in, matching him to Makoto’s stunned reaction. This being the last night he will have with Makoto for now and possibly forever, he chooses to lean into it instead of receding into the safety of their unspoken confessions. “I really like you, Makoto. I’m grateful I met you. I’d do it all again.”</p><p>“Grateful.” Makoto stumbles over the word and all of its implications, an emotional kaleidoscope rippling across his features so strong it reflects on Sousuke’s consciousness as distress. “It’s all my fault, Sousuke. I didn’t want to make you go away that night. I could’ve. But you saw me and you wanted to talk to me and I couldn’t think of the last time I met anyone who... I lied to you. It was <em>selfish</em>.” Makoto half-assed his illusions that night on purpose. His heart, as Haru joked at the time, truly was not in it. “And now you’re hurt and tired and in danger because of me. Haru has to chaperone in case I try to hurt you again. Don’t be grateful for that.”</p><p>The admission amounts to not even one partially-formed regretful or resentful thought. All Sousuke hears is an echo of his own lifelong loneliness. Makoto wanted him from the moment they met, not out of any compulsive curse, but born of a deep seated longing for someone who was just… different. Even if different was simple or someone he’d met a thousand times, just slightly new. It touches him deeply, through his often externally reinforced self-appraisal that he’s anything interesting. Makoto has insisted from the beginning that he is, and he has the experience to claim it. For once, Sousuke feels okay about himself and how he turned out. Makoto makes him feel worthy as he is, effortlessly. Maybe this is what it’s supposed to be, and not all the times before he thought he could settle for less than.</p><p>When Makoto clears his throat and whispers something unintelligible to himself, Sousuke knows what he’s thinking is more than just what he wants to be true. It is true, and Makoto can’t pretend he doesn’t feel it, too.</p><p>“None of that changes what I said.”</p><p>Makoto sighs and looks away. He wants it to matter. He expects consequences. It comes from a place of existing in perpetual atonement, Sousuke figures. How anyone could see Makoto as anything other than deeply committed to his humanity is lost on him, no matter Rin’s and Gou’s reasonable worldview. People can change.</p><p>Haru’s song loops around. Quiet now. No intrusive lyrics.</p><p>Consequences. He looks to Makoto’s hands. Fine, he can do consequences.</p><p>“Dance with me.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>Sousuke steps off his stool and gestures behind himself to all of that antisocial, negative space. “Dance with me and it’s even.”</p><p>Makoto recoils, pushing from his lean to step back and away. “I don’t dance.”</p><p>“But you can.”</p><p>“I choose not to.”</p><p>“One dance in exchange for shrugging off my cursed mortal soul? C’mon. Let’s be normal awkward crushes for one night.”</p><p>If there’s a way to guilt someone benevolently, Sousuke has mastered it. Makoto dislodges from the back reluctantly, eyes flitting to Haru as he rounds the bar and comes to a stiff stop before Sousuke’s alcohol-loosened slouch and outstretched right hand.</p><p>“Take my hand—”</p><p>He holds his complementary hand back and close to his chest. “Sousuke—”</p><p>“I know you’re freezing. Take my hand anyway.”</p><p>There is a protest in the form of a private whimper but Makoto does as he’s asked. Timidly so, until Sousuke fully grasps him and guides him in.</p><p>“I don’t know what to do,” Makoto mutters. He does, of course. If Sousuke does, Makoto does.</p><p>“Just move and keep tempo. It’s not a swing dance.” Another nervous glance towards Haru. “He doesn’t give a shit and you know it.” By Makoto’s elbow, Sousuke moves Makoto’s hand to rest on his waist. “No one can see you but me. I won’t torture you forever.”</p><p>“Okay,” Makoto breathes, more for himself. The worst of his tension releases, allowing Makoto to conform to the natural slopes of Souske’s waist and palm. Notably, Makoto could choose to obscure them from Haru, and doesn’t.</p><p>Sousuke smooths his free hand up the front of Makoto’s stupid, lovely sweater of the day and cups his left shoulder. And, on the next natural start, they dance to Haru’s music. Simple in concept, a chance to be present and rock steady against the nonstop turbulence, past and future.</p><p>It only takes one synchronized step for Makoto to dissolve. Gone is the strain and stress, down come his barriers. By the fourth easy step, that chaste space Sousuke left between them is gone as Makoto wraps his arm around Sousuke’s middle and falls against his chest. Sousuke returns his hold in kind, his own arm stretching across the back of Makoto’s shoulders. A box in him breaks and reveals how badly Sousuke wants more than this— he wishes he could see Makoto’s face when he instead chooses again to hide it, he wishes he could kiss Makoto breathless— but he is content here too. As long as Makoto has, and as much as he is willing to give.</p><p>Gently, the song fills itself in. It falls into place here, as the music wraps him up from the outside and the lyrics braid within him, that Haru was never singing. Not before, not now. Haru makes music, he doesn’t make illusions. Haru is not bound to Sousuke’s heart or able to communicate to him all that he can’t say. It was always Makoto who sang.</p><p>—<em>That's why, darling, it's incredible<br/>
</em><em>That someone so unforgettable—</em></p><p>“Remember this instead,” Makoto murmurs somewhere near Sousuke’s ear. This meaning now, and not when he was afraid, not when he was hurting. Remember this, when he’s happy, in case it’s the last time.</p><p>—<em>Thinks that I am<br/>
</em><em>Unforgettable, too.</em></p><p>“I can do that.”</p><p>By the time they slow to a stop, a short time later as promised, Makoto does not let him go. They share a burden so heavy neither can discern whose it is, or for who it mourns. Only irreconcilable grief as time continues to slip away, dragging them towards an end, one way or another.</p><p>Sousuke rather callously plotted to drag this night out, even if it broke his heart to lie and be with a man who can’t be his. Now he needs to stay, and take everything he can get and give everything he has, for that same reason.</p><p>“How do we shake our chaperone?”</p><p>Makoto’s inhale is sharp. “I asked him to do it. I don’t think that’s wise.”</p><p>“I never said I was wise.” He pulls back to see Makoto’s placid face, so at peace and wholly <em>him </em>it’s only due to Makoto’s over-abundance of caution he could still be worried about his self-control. In and of itself, a self-defeating contradiction. “I’m taking myself to dinner now because I am starving and I cannot physically eat another cold can of soup. Haru’s void driving us to my restaurant for a good old-fashioned B-and-E, then he’s gonna go swimming. And,” he says over Makoto’s fledgling protest, “it will be <em>fine</em>. You will not murder me.”</p><p>Makoto huffs and relents. “You would handle the powers of hypnotic persuasion much better than I ever could.”</p><p>“Then turn me,” Sousuke says. Why not test it here at this point, despite its obvious conclusion.</p><p>“Not in one million years.”</p><p>“Mm. Thought so. So that’s a yes?”</p><p>Ever a wingman, Haru’s hellish void pet has already snuck beneath their feet.</p>
<hr/><p>His favorite knife is where it should be, untouched and undisturbed, but still on deck in waiting and placed precisely in its block as Sousuke would have set it. This, more than any “get your shit together and do something” conversation he’s had with Kazuma over the last few years, reminds Sousuke that he always had his family, no matter how small and pissed off it was at him. He misses his cousin, it crushes him unprepared like a ton of bricks. He hopes he will see him again. Their reunion is far away, still.</p><p>“Sousuke?”</p><p>“I used to sneak in here with Sei,” he responds distantly. “Shit-faced and hungry for the greasiest fucking garbage plate we could deep fry and throw together. Kazuma found out every time, we’d always leave something out. He’d make me scrub every single inch of this whole ugly building. Never got security cameras, somehow.”</p><p>“Oh.” Makoto surveys the half-lit kitchen. “We’ll have to be careful.”</p><p>“Nah. I’ll leave something out on purpose this time.” He walks over to the fridge and considers his options. “What doesn’t offend you?”</p><p>“Make whatever you like. It’s not as bad as Haru makes it seem.”</p><p>That is not surprising. “Do you remember what you used to like?”</p><p>Makoto’s laugh is good-natured, but reminds Sousuke of his naivety. “I don’t, but I’m sure given how I grew up, all I ever had was bug-infested or rotten.”</p><p>“Ah right. Well…”</p><p>He catalogues the various ingredients before him and considers what will make the least noticeable impact on Kazuma’s stocks, only now conscious of pulling from his already meager bottom line. The emotional drive to see and show his kitchen in conjunction with his gnawing lightly buzzed hunger superseded his more rational senses here. Something quick. Something not repulsive. He would very much like to avoid Makoto’s repulsion.</p><p>There, in the corner. Containers of leftover prep, for personal use. Perfect for a quick stir fry. Three eggs, two scoops of rice, a hodgepodge of ugly bits and bruised potato, mushroom, carrot, onion, and soy sauce. From the pantry, sesame oil, skip the garlic just in case Makoto was kidding, honey, chili flakes. Tame enough, nothing too strong.</p><p>From the corner of his eye, he sees Makoto rest a hip on one of the counters and settle in to quietly observe him work.</p><p>Easy, natural. Too lazy for working the wok, he reaches for a hanging standard frying pan at the same time as he lights one of the stove burners. Pan down, splash of oil to a shimmer, followed by the rice and a glug of soy sauce. A second pan for the smaller burner. Oil heated to a shimmer, vegetable mix tossed in. He could pre-scramble the eggs in a bowl before dumping them in, but that’s an extra dish, so once the rice heats through he pops all three directly into the pan and quickly grabs the nearest spatula to scramble and disperse within the rice.</p><p>As the egg cooks, he waits for color on the vegetables. Add a honey drizzle, soy sauce, and pepper flakes. Let it go another few minutes, kill the heat on both burners. Plate. Ten minutes in all, maybe. No record of his, the potatoes are undercooked, but not bad.</p><p>Sousuke spins the plate around on the countertop for effect. “Ta da.”</p><p>Makoto’s response is a clashing mix of deep longing and amusement. “You’re very good at that.”</p><p>Sousuke rubs at the back of his neck. “Nah. That’s any job you’ve been doin’ your whole life. It’s fun, though.”</p><p>“If I try and imagine what food tastes like, it looks very good.” The longing is for ritual and belonging, from a person forever trapped outside and looking in. “Regardless, I enjoyed the performance. Thank you for sharing it with me.”</p><p>Sei would call it bland, Kazuma would call it beneath his potential. Rightful criticism, but it is also nice to be complimented. A performance, no less. He nods and digs into it, more concerned with hiding his pitiful mortal needs than he is with savoring it. Meanwhile Makoto pushes off the counter and wanders around the stainless steel kitchen, observing what must be an alien display of tools and appliances he’s never bothered with seeing up close or critically considering their range of functions. He hums, too. A meandering song, a quilt of all the melodies he likes to sing when he thinks Sousuke isn’t listening.</p><p>The never-pleased Sei on his shoulder would be correct; it is bland. But it’s hot and has more than just exposure to the suggestion of flavor that all those cans had. Better yet, unless Kazuma is on a tear about inventory down to the individual eggs again, he will not have fucked anyone over with his scavenging save the birds Isuzu likes to flick grains of old rice at out back.</p><p>Sousuke washes it all down with a glass of water, sure to flush out both any residual shochu buzz and lingering vampire-offending scents. Two rookie mistakes he will not be making here. The pause to simply eat and be is a welcome cooling saucer for all of his heavier and abundant emotions and woes. Cleaning it up is an exercise in controlled catharsis.</p><p>At the sink, washing his dishes, he senses Makoto finishing his circuit and returning to where he started. “I’ll cook for you one day,” he says over the water, “and you can judge the taste for yourself.” Sometime between the final rinse and the drying, Makoto shifts somewhere behind him, casting his shadow over the other half of the sink. “Though, to be honest, I know I’m good.”</p><p>“Sousuke.”</p><p>His name uttered that low and heavy gives him pause. Its cadence is too familiar, too soon. He slows his hand drying as he mentally colates the reasons why Makoto would move in so close. Ultimately he rejects any kneejerk thoughts that work their way in. His trust is stronger than that. He sets the dirtied dish towel down and turns around to put it to the test.</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“Can I kiss you?”</p><p>A cute reply never manifests, there is no quip to be found. Only a static drop off and the sub-audible halt of all things, inside and out. Makoto stands there, tall and unflinching. Braver than Sousuke were the position reversed, he does not fear Sousuke’s silence is rejection. It isn’t. Sousuke just needs a goddamned minute to collect his upended expectations from the floor.</p><p>While resisting the compulsion to do it himself and thereby denying Makoto his initiative, he simply says: “Yes.”</p><p>No fireworks, no weakened knees, no shoving or lustrous greed. That is not how Makoto maneuvers the turns he takes in his life and Sousuke does not want or expect him to behave any differently now. He handles the movement with reverent care, from the moment he presses his lips to Sousuke’s to match the curves, through the firm and sure placement of his hands on Sousuke’s chest. Thoughtful and thorough, until its regrettable end when he steps back and takes himself away. Self-conscious, as always, of the parts of him that are too hollow.</p><p>“Thank you,” Makoto says, to Sousuke’s woozy bafflement. “I didn’t want to be afraid of doing that anymore.”</p><p>Sousuke’s holding back releases, lending blunt force impact to his response. “Well shit can we do more of it?”</p><p>Somehow Makoto can still be quietly surprised that Sousuke can never be deterred by him. As if it’s not both in his DNA to be undeterred from his pursuits in general as well as a menacingly physical part of his curse for this specific person.</p><p>“I—” Makoto stumbles, exhales, re-aligns. He nods. “I know a better place to talk than your cousin’s restaurant, if you’re finished here with the eggs.”</p><p>Sousuke is already moving to return items to their places. “Not convinced you didn’t make this place sound as unattractive as possible on purpose just now.”</p><p>Makoto’s smile isn’t telling. Sousuke leaves the spatula out of place on their way out. They leave together for a walk into the night.</p>
<hr/><p>“Are you cold?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Are you lying?”</p><p>“Partially.”</p><p>“We should go inside.”</p><p>“I’m stretching out after you made me walk all the way here.”</p><p>“And whose fault is that? We had demonic transportation.”</p><p>Sousuke tears his gaze from the stars and rolls onto his side. The wooden slats of Makoto’s deck wallop every knob and bump in Sousuke’s back and shoulder as he rotates despite his coat and pullover, but this seemed like a good idea at the time. “Think of how much fun he’s having hunting instead.”</p><p>Makoto turns his head to the side to meet him. “I only worry about him when he’s out there.”</p><p>“When you’re both mortal again you can just worry about the regular stuff, like him being arrested for trespassing.”</p><p>“Trespassing?” Makoto laughs.</p><p>“I mean if I had to bet on the petty crime he is most likely to commit immediately. Feels right.”</p><p>Makoto hums and his smile fades. Doesn’t drop, only eases. “Why do you keep saying that?”</p><p>More than accustomed to Makoto’s delayed responses by now, Sousuke doesn’t need to think twice about returning to the underpinned topic. “You want to be mortal. Why wouldn’t I fantasize about it with you? Can’t hurt.”</p><p>Makoto turns all of himself onto his side now and stays that way for a minute. Thinking. Tentatively, he reaches forward and slowly traces up the edge of Sousuke coat lapel.</p><p>“I’ve always known it was never going to happen,” he starts hardly above a whisper, his own little secret. “I just… needed something to believe in, I guess. For when it was hard to answer why I bothered. I would read and watch all the beautiful things people made and imagine myself getting to do it. I’d make friends and date and pretend for a little while until they’d want more. Then I’d tell them to forget about me and I’d disappear. It was never easy. Some of them I really...” He refixes his gaze to Sousuke’s from where he’s spaced out elsewhere. His travelling touch reaches Sousuke’s jaw and continues along its edge. “Some of them I really thought I could love, if I could have stayed. I had to lie and say well, maybe one day. Maybe the next one. Maybe one day I can have breakfast, or sleep in a warm bed, or lay out in the sun. Then I could keep at it. Lately though I haven’t been as hopeful, as I grow more tired.”</p><p>Sousuke’s ever busy mind hears this and wants to go to work. He should be replaying his conversation with Rin and Gou, approaching the exorcism idea from all angles in search for a loophole. Anything to get his nose to grindstone and focus on solutions. But his compassionate self won’t let him. He can’t, rather. Makoto wants him to feel this and hold it with him, not fix it. That is Makoto’s will.</p><p>From his jaw, Makoto brushes the edge of his cheekbone with the backs of his fingers. Barely touching, leaving a faint cold trail along his skin. “Some ignorant part of me that won’t die wants to think if I starve enough, if I’m sorry enough, maybe I’ll wake up normal again one day. But it’s just… not going to happen. That’s the part Haru gets frustrated with. That I sit there and wait for nothing to happen.” To Sousuke’s hairline, more tactile here in the way he brushes through the short tufts. “I guess he can’t say that anymore now, though.”</p><p>Confronting his horribly violent maker with the intention of killing him to stop him from tormenting everyone is anything but sitting there, Sousuke supposes. That he only chooses to do this once it’s more than just him and Haru on the line speaks to how badly he wishes he didn’t have to. It reinforces why Sousuke has to try and get ahead of him. He is not so forgiving or nuanced by centuries of self-reflection, and would kill Captain Fisherman without a second thought like the short-sighted barbarian he is. Working with one’s faults and all that.</p><p>Makoto removes his hand. Sousuke captures it before it’s lost and laces their fingers. No more of that tepid hiding. It helps that Sousuke’s hand is nearly as cold as Makoto’s, to lessen the differential.</p><p>“I don’t want to die,” Makoto confesses after a long pause. “It’s so selfish after all this time I’ve had. All I’ve seen and done, all the lives I’ve lived. Forgive me, but I still don’t want to die.”</p><p>Sousuke shakes his head. No productive use in pointing out Makoto hasn’t been alive this whole time when Makoto hasn’t been mentally open to other perspectives on this topic. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”</p><p>“If he doesn’t kill me, and I succeed, Haru will have to so I don’t become a monster.”</p><p>“Those aren’t the only outcomes.”</p><p>“At least either way, you get your life back.”</p><p>“Makoto—”</p><p>“<em>Sousuke</em>,” he pleads, releasing Sousuke’s hand to hold his face, “this is what it is. It will happen either way.”</p><p>It’s as if he means to drive his truth home through this first wholly committed contact of his own volition. As patient and content as Sousuke’s been just to be with him, not to mention deeply touched Makoto would share this much with him, Makoto speaking this way is difficult to hold his tongue on.</p><p>“Sorry, you can’t know that,” Sousuke repeats. “There’s more for you than this. You don’t have to believe it, but I do. You’re not alone, Makoto. Haru would do anything for you.” And this is surely a proxy for what he really means, so he may as well shoot his shot: “I’d do anything for you.”</p><p>Sousuke shouldn’t have said it, knowing it to be too revealing, too obvious that he wouldn’t simply sit around and allow Makoto his wish. Makoto has to know now Sousuke will not go quietly into that lonely night. That realization is dawning plainly in his eyes. It’s a mutual realization, too. Sousuke didn’t plan to make Makoto suspicious of him, to blow up his agreement with Gou and Rin. But he just can’t do it. This duplicity isn’t him. Allowing Makoto to become defeated with his conviction of death prematurely isn’t him. Not for a moment can Sousuke stand the idea that Makoto believes he must do this without him, even if Sousuke’s plan is to inextricably involve himself no matter what Makoto believes. If Sousuke’s going to do this, he’s going to do it true to himself and done honestly by Makoto.</p><p>How Makoto feels about Sousuke’s declaration flies beneath the more acute argument at hand. “I’m doing this to protect you.”</p><p>“Then order me to stay out of it.”</p><p>Makoto bolts upright onto one locked-out arm. “...That’s not fair.”</p><p>Sousuke chooses to press him, rising to a seat with crossed legs. “Tell me to forget about this. That’s why I’m bound to you, right? To obey? Force me to.”</p><p>He shakes his head, pushing up to a mirrored sit. “I promised I never would.”</p><p>“Then you are asking me to willingly let you play out a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not me, Makoto.” He closes his eyes a moment and breathes. This impulsive decision to lean into calling Makoto’s bluff and double down on the tension he at first sought to relieve might be a stupendously terrible one if he’s wrong. “Again, if you want me out of this, force me out.”</p><p>Makoto locks eyes with him in contest, bearing the full brunt of the strength he hides behind his genial mannerisms and cloaking, deflective words. Directly beneath the outside light, he is starkly lit and his features are reduced to their simple parts, easy to read. He’s agitated and loathsome of being forced to address this head-on, surely having thought if Sousuke didn’t challenge him on it earlier in the night, he wouldn’t at all. It only makes Sousuke’s decision seem more correct, from a spiritual perspective. How can he claim he would do anything for him without staying the course when it gets thorny?</p><p>“I can’t,” Makoto eventually says through his clenched teeth. “It wouldn’t work.”</p><p>“Why?” Sousuke has found the missing truth, but won’t speak it for him.</p><p>“Because it wouldn’t be what I want.”</p><p>That piercing, wrenching pull in his chest knocks into Sousuke harder than it has at any point before it. Worryingly so at times, it was unclear where Sousuke’s desire ended and Makoto’s began. If it was even real. If Sousuke is attracted to him solely of his own passions or strung along to lose himself in what felt good and euphoric. More lately the distinction is clearer. There is no curse to confuse with his own desires anymore. Since nearly losing Makoto, the line has been clear. He understands on another level that this can only be irrefutably true because Makoto’s desires simply feel <em>different </em>in how they sit on Sousuke’s entire being. Sousuke wants Makoto in competition with himself as he would want to prove himself worthy of anything worthwhile. Makoto however, wants Sousuke out of his profound and agonizing longing for the facets of life that were stolen from him and all he can’t have.</p><p>Makoto struggles to reciprocate Sousuke's desire as he balances his world on a razor’s edge. Then again, he isn't stagnant. Makoto has spoken to his truth braver than he has in days past. Bit by bit, Sousuke has pushed up against his defenses and Makoto has lowered them. But he still shies away from experiencing the intangible mess of it all, reflected in how he never quite touches Sousuke, and launders his feelings through old songs, and speaks nostalgically of what all he thinks will never be. So despite it being the middle of the night, it is clear as day when the intangible mess of it all breaks through. Who initiates, who cares? Their second kiss is different. Less concerned with propriety. It’s their second kiss for only a moment, before it weaves into the third, fourth, and beyond any cognizant count.</p><p>Makoto is there. Sousuke can hold him, feel him. Weight and resistance and texture, all beautifully present for Sousuke. The lack of warmth in his lips is an adjustment, as it was for his hands, but to no detriment with Makoto’s abundance of passion to compensate.</p><p>Makoto is also not there. There is no signature scent to him for Sousuke to embed into his memory, no taste for him to chase. Touching him like this, flush with the sides of his face, is like touching someone in a dream. Just off enough for the most sensitive of lucid dreamers to know they aren’t awake. Missing is the tactile electricity, the thrum and current of life beyond the pulse that no one can explain, only sense when it isn’t present. Some call that a soul, and maybe it’s that Makoto’s is trapped between worlds.</p><p>In any case, none of these quirks matter, and quickly fall by the wayside.</p><p>What’s real and there is Makoto pushing Sousuke back until he must throw his hands back and behind to catch himself. It tweaks his wrist and strains his shoulder where he is still just barely unhealed, a distant discomfort as long as Makoto is on him like this, working his hands beneath his coat like this. An excited heat radiates from the inside out, warming him up to the point his coat is approaching too much.</p><p>Makoto wants it off of him, a silent demand Sousuke attempts to fulfill despite the position. Sousuke lifts one arm to work free first, and bears his weight on his wrist to do it. It protests louder than it did a moment ago, sharp enough to tense him up and for Makoto to notice. Makoto eases back and questions him with a look. Damn stupid broken bones.</p><p>“Still a little banged up.”</p><p>Makoto inclines his head off to the side. “Inside?”</p><p>At this angle, his eerie luminescent gaze peers at Sousuke askance from behind shaggy, sandy fringe. The lighting casts his cheekbones into razor sharp and washed-out relief. It is perhaps the first time Makoto’s ever really looked the part of the vampire Sousuke constantly has to remind himself that he is. Hauntingly beautiful and chillingly threatening, as they are in their mythos, and Makoto is especially beautiful and dangerous for him. Sousuke’s leaping pulse drops from up high to one laborious pump. The more Makoto shares of himself, the thicker Sousuke’s blood runs for him.</p><p>He swallows the sandstorm raging in his throat. “Yeah.”</p><p>Makoto gets to his feet in no particular hurry. He offers Sosuke a hand up, and uses more strength than is strictly human to pull him up. Sousuke is more wound up than he realized, finding the idea Makoto could snap him in half or lift him high over his head quite demanding of his attention. Sousuke is a salt of the earth man in that way. Makoto clocks it, and steadily and firmly guides him backwards towards the sliding door by a strong hand laid over the center of his chest.</p><p>Inside, Sousuke drops his coat on the floor somewhere en route to Makoto’s bedroom. The transition is surreal, Sousuke doesn’t log the minutiae of their movements and only goes where he is directed by the small of his back on their slow and soundless walk through the house.</p><p>In the bedroom, Makoto tugs at Sousuke’s pullover with one hand as he turns him around at his hip with the other to face him. Sousuke papers over his achy shoulder with a low and humble request— “Help me out?”— and Makoto obliges, mindful of the strength of his pull as the hem clears Sousuke’s head. He captures Sousuke with another kiss before Sousuke can drop this garment, too.</p><p>His torso exposed, the ever-present chill of the home is hard to ignore, despite Makoto stoking his fire. Beyond temperature distraction is the slow churning thought at the back of Sousuke’s mind that while Makoto is lavishly attentive to Sousuke and fervently taken with kissing him, he isn’t enjoying it in the same carnal way Sousuke is. It’s obvious in that emotional space where they share their inner experiences that any lust Makoto has for him is theoretical, not active. It doesn't excite Sousuke as it seems Sousuke’s is encouraging him.</p><p>Sousuke can’t reconcile it with Makoto’s words and actions. He breaks from him, hands bracing his neck. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Makoto reassures. “It’s… well, it’s not you.” A pained smile as he repeats himself. “It’s definitely not you.”</p><p>It dawns on Sousuke, he is swept beneath a wave of embarrassment for his own oversight. Makoto is dead. Alive according to an off-earth set of rules, but biologically dead in this realm. Arousal is in the realm of the living. Now Sousuke’s overheating at his ears, put over the top with shame. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of it.”</p><p>He shakes his head. “Don’t be. I’m happy for what I can get.”</p><p>“But Haru—”<br/>
<br/>
“Haru feeds. Sex is… energy. If that’s what you wanted here.”</p><p>It is an answer to a question he never fully formed until right now, but one that seems obvious in retrospect. “I only want you. Never had to be anything else or more.”</p><p>“That’s very sweet,” Makoto says. He claps Sousuke over his shoulders and levels with him frankly. “I personally would love to have sex.”</p><p>Sousuke chuckles and sighs, walking backward towards the foot of Makoto’s bed and taking Makoto with him in a bear hug. The comforter is too enticing. They flop onto the mattress, and the plushness at Sousuke’s back immediately curbs his chill and allows his muscles to relax. “Not a big deal.”</p><p>“Say that after a few centuries.”</p><p>Sousuke laughs again. “If that’s a challenge, I’ll win. Turn me and find out.”</p><p>Makoto hums, noncommittal either way to that opinion. He wriggles from beneath Sousuke’s hold and angles over him, raking his eyes over Sousuke’s torso. “It’d be a shame if you lost this tan, so I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”</p><p>He notices and tilts his head in response to the healing wound on Sousuke’s shoulder, which displays currently as four fresh, raw entry wound scars. Gently, he brushes his lips to each point. It’s sensitive. Because the nerve endings repaired quickly, the area is hyper-reactive. Sousuke shivers. He’s not cold. Makoto then takes up Sousuke’s left wrist and rubs his thumb in circles directly over the mended break, eyebrows furrowing. The chasm between the Makoto who snapped it and the Makoto delicately holding it now is a canyon, moreso because it doesn’t appear Makoto consciously remembers he did it and is confused as to why he is drawn to it.</p><p>Sousuke doesn’t want him to remember that. “The one on my back is cool as shit,” he suggests.</p><p>It breaks his study as intended. Makoto is apprehensive, but nods. Sousuke rolls right, exposing his mangled flank. Makoto’s breath catches. “Oh, Sousuke,” he whispers. “Oh, no.”</p><p>“It’s rugged right,” Sousuke lies for the sake of the mood. “Sexy.”</p><p>“You don’t believe that at all.” Makoto can’t find it in him to play along, making a quick retirement out of the half-hearted bit.</p><p>“If I say it enough maybe I will eventually.”</p><p>Makoto kisses him here, too, startling him stiff and ripping him briefly from the safety of now to his night as hapless prey in the woods. His jaw and stomach clench and his mind’s eye stains with a splatter of viscous blood. A problem for future Sousuke to work through. Makoto kisses him again lighter, apologetically so.</p><p>“I hate how much I can’t remember,” Makoto murmurs. “Just you looking at me, in pain, so much blood, then making me…” This kiss shifts in momentum and intent. Something about Makoto’s focus grants him some measure of pleasure in what he’s doing. He drags his lips, barely breaking the line up Sousuke’s sensitive side. Keeping up with Makoto’s stop and go, high and low, is its own marathon tonight. Makoto’s hand smooths around his hip and splays over the front of his abdomen and pulls Sousuke more to himself, his kisses intensify, ending in light nipping between the edges of his teeth.</p><p>The sensation lands itself squarely between Sousuke’s struggle with his recent traumas and his heightened and prolonged arousal from the culmination of the night. He gasps, deep, filling his lungs with chill as flame coils in his belly. Makoto guides Sousuke onto his back again, then slides a leg over his hips and pulls himself up and over into a straddle.</p><p>“Take off that fucking sweater already.”</p><p>“...I guess that’s fair.” He’s not enthusiastic to do it, but obliges.</p><p>He’s stunning, simply thought. All that loose clothing never fully hid his physique but Sousuke now sees he was missing out anyway. Lean, given the time he hails from, but broad at his shoulders and alluringly tapered at his waist. Were he able to lay out in sunlight, his freckled chest would reflect a rich copper, but the pale of him is pretty too. This or Makoto tricks his eyes into seeing beauty, but either way Sousuke’s hands travelling up his stomach confirm his eyes’ assessment.</p><p>“God, come here.”</p><p>Makoto bends to him and smiles playfully. “No God here,” he says, letting a trickle of his demon out to play to remind him.</p><p>“Good. No room.” And, finally, their scuffs and disagreements and fears settled for now, they meet in the center of the hard-fought bridge mending the distance forced between them. Nothing more to say, the rest can wait, and Makoto quickly proves he is good with his tongue in forms other than speaking softly with it.</p><p>He is deft and deliberate, working their curse to his benefit to steep himself wholly into Sousuke’s reactions and wear them as his own. He feels out Sousuke’s cresting tensions unfolding in his own heart and teases him to edges bit by languid bit until he drops Sousuke from heights he builds to, dragging Sousuke down between the teeth of his unstable self.</p><p>No goals, no natural progressions towards more. Only two tired, deprived bodies seeking fullness in the overlapping space where it can be found. Makoto, cerebrally stimulated and emotionally consumed, Sousuke touched and relished all over. Little experiments in mutual reverence, far away from where they’ve languished.</p><p>When Makoto meets his eyes, Sousuke is brought to clarity by the glimpses into his ache for what he’s missing. Makoto wants to feel the same way Sousuke does. In body, not only in mind. “Tell me how it feels,” Makoto says before he kisses or touches somewhere new, to which Sousuke can only gasp or moan or curse. Makoto thanks him, praises him, telling him that’s good enough. But no, it really isn’t good enough, not for Sousuke.</p><p>Somewhere between Makoto’s teeth finding the faint scar left behind on Sousuke’s neck from where he drank, and Sousuke taking Makoto’s hand into his own as he did when Makoto was burned, Sousuke relives his pain and remembers taking on Makoto’s too. He inhabits two points in time of unbelievable suffering in convergence. Both were times when Sousuke willingly discarded his body as Haru taught him to, both were times when Sousuke gave to Makoto what Makoto couldn’t have and took Makoto’s struggles on for himself.</p><p>Is this not also one of those times when Makoto needs help?</p><p>As he helped heal Makoto, lended strength to Makoto, Sousuke can do better than tell him how he feels. Sousuke gives him intimacy, another selfless act in his part to play, as a familiar serving his vampire.</p><p>Makoto is warm, it bursts across him and renders them both stunned and still. It is not just warmth in his palm as before, but a hot flush across his chest and in the kiss of his lips on Sousuke’s skin. That spectral form of his solidifies, Sousuke isn’t touching someone who is caught between dimensions. Sousuke anchors him to his body, and Makoto is alive for as long as Sousuke can hold them there.</p><p>“How are you doing this?” Makoto asks hot and breathlessly to his lips in an echo of his disbelief from before.</p><p>“I still don’t know,” Sousuke answers, reaching up and cupping his reddened cheek. “Tell me how it feels.” He rolls his hips up into Makoto’s, eliciting from him the privilege of his low and heady moan, chased by a kiss of new depth and a different hunger.</p><p>Makoto is not in opposition to consuming Sousuke anymore. He takes every plea and whimper and shudder from him greedily, and returns his own in kind. He is powerful and confident, tender and worshipping, and when Sousuke is bold and wants him to sing, he submits to that, too. They go as far as they can, as openly and fervently as they can, because unspoken is a fear that it could end too soon. They don’t know how long Makoto will be <em>here </em>like this, and if it can ever happen again.</p><p>When it’s over, they’re afraid to let go, and so spent they can barely hold on. Sousuke’s vision is full of stars as it was when they started, Makoto’s preciously flushed face almost masks the creeping grief filling in beneath it that it will have to fade soon. Sousuke strokes his hair and basks in his warmth, he kisses Makoto devoutly and softens the blow best he can for the both of them as Makoto’s world goes cold and detached once more. It can’t completely hide their shared anguish, or cover up their soft and hitching exchange between laboring breaths of “next time, next time”, but it’s all Sousuke can think to do to care for him as his hopes are dashed yet again.</p><p>When the euphoria falls out, it leaves Sousuke brittle and rattled like a thin plane of glass in a hurricane. No one is built for their own full range of emotions and sensations heightened by intoxicating intimacy in addition to the full brunt of another’s. His come down is wretched and derealizing, and all the world crashing back into him is a cruel place he can’t bear in comparison to where he just was. It is nonsensical to him to feel this way, but the rational part of himself is in retreat and yelling from inside a windowless room.</p><p>Makoto says nothing about it, perhaps understanding the jarring violence of a split self, and only acts. He bathes with Sousuke and redresses Sousuke and encourages him into a newly made bed, only checking in along the way for his comfort. All the while, Sousuke is connected to himself by a splitting thread, toiling in the torment of a withdrawal he can’t define or explain.</p><p>Makoto lies close with him, though he won’t sleep. He stays too, until Sousuke does.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. a bone to pick</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>beginning of the end ok pls trust me</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When dawn breaks, Makoto wakes him.</p><p>“Haru would like to take us back,” Makoto explains as Sousuke works through the fog. “It’s safer for you.”</p><p>Sousuke shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. We talked about it and I’m staying with you.”</p><p>“We did.” As if to soften his delivery, he works Sousuke’s mussed hair into its correct parting and orientation. “...But I haven’t decided anything, and Haru doesn’t know we spoke about it. Better to be somewhere I can think without worrying more than I need to.”</p><p>Sousuke sighs and sits up. This could get complicated if Rin and Gou show up. Even he doesn’t know what he should do, having put the cart before the horse in terms of showing his hand last night. As ever, past Sousuke’s passionate yet short-sighted decision making is a problem for future logic-oriented Sousuke. “You need to know—”</p><p>“I don’t mean to be rude, but can it wait?” Makoto rises from the bed already dressed to leave and gestures to Sousuke’s outerwear from the day prior, folded neatly on top of his dresser. “We don’t have a ton of time before sunrise. Haru needs rest.”</p><p>Best not to abridge this anyway, and that’s as close to a command as Makoto is likely to skirt. Sousuke splashes his face with water in the bathroom and dresses while Makoto leaves him to do so, and joins the pair waiting for him near the door for his shoes. He’s wobbly and half-awake, they stand as if they’ve been waiting for him for hours and not three minutes.</p><p>Sousuke’s head is less a minefield of disjointed emotional misery now, but there is some sludge still preventing him from fully reconnecting to himself. Haru, fine purveyor of disembodied consciousnesses, narrows his eyes at him in suspicion of his condition before apparently deciding he’s still stable enough to hitch a ride into un-space and pop out far away from here. He’s back to dressing inappropriately short sleeved and has a haggard ruffle to his edges.</p><p>“Makoto,” Haru says, “don’t forget to leave food for the cats.”</p><p>Makoto forms an enlightened <em>oh</em> with his mouth and holds up a pointer finger before excusing himself to raid a cupboard in his kitchen.</p><p>Haru speaks low and out of extended earshot as he watches Makoto carry a bag of cat food to the back door. His exhaustion makes his tone curt. “Whatever you’re doing, however you’re doing it, stop.”</p><p>The weight of the warning in it is enough to chill Sousuke awake. He can’t beat back his blush, even if Haru is only vaguely referring to the weird thing he does with Makoto and not specifically how they’ve recently learned it can be used. “...I don’t know how it happens.”</p><p>“Figure it out. You’re giving him too much and splitting apart. There is more than just the literal way for a vampire to eat you.” He frowns. “Don’t tell Makoto. I don’t want him to withdraw again. Just... stop. Please.” He mutters something then about herding cats, and Sousuke’s sure he’s not on about the ones in the backyard.</p><p>“Right.” More fuel for the theory that the intended endgame for a familiar is consumption, one way or another. Yet another death to be wary of, this one emotionally. Whatever he thought about Makoto being incapable of loving him needs an adjustment. Even loving Sousuke will kill him! Great.</p><p>Makoto hustles inside and returns the kibble to its cupboard. He must sense something sour on the air outside of Haru’s grumpy sleepiness, bouncing his concerned attention to Sousuke now, too.</p><p>“Feeling better?” he asks Sousuke.</p><p>“Uh. Yeah. Back to normal.”</p><p>Haru warns them of their imminent departure with a slower reach of his shadow than he typically uses. “I’m tired. Focus so I don’t drop you into nowhere.”</p><p>He aims that at Sousuke, then takes them into the rift. It is a piece of advice well meant. Sousuke is more aware of their interdimensional travel now than he has been. Holding focus means Haru needs him to remember his body, apparently, because he is currently trying to shirk it in transit. He works against himself antagonistically to stay solvent. As opposed to their other jumps, Haru’s monster would really like to keep him this time. Does it sense a piece of him is loose, as Haru did?</p><p>When Haru tears into the clearing in front of their bugout shelter, Sousuke stumbles out of it nauseous and anxious as if he’s been sitting in the backseat of a car without a seatbelt whipping through winding mountain roads.</p><p>It is immediately the least of his worries. He stands straight to the view of Makoto’s and Haru’s backs walling him off.</p><p>“Haru, send Sousuke back to the house.”</p><p>“I can’t.”</p><p>Beyond them, a line of hunters with porcelain masks.</p><p>“Send him back!”</p><p>“I <em>can’t. </em>He wouldn’t make it alone.”</p><p>Beyond the hunters and the treeline, light dawn, threatening sunrise.</p><p>The hunters chatter, and everything stops. Their mocking laughter pierces Sousuke all the way through and pins him to the ground. Every muscle fossilizes, screams rise in his chest and die in his throat, he commands himself to run but it falls off a conveyor belt in his mind and into an abyss.</p><p>The ground is taken from him, uprooting his entrenched soles. The high-frequency ring in his ears fades as Makoto’s calling for him replaces it. Makoto has thrown him out of the way of a diving hunter, and ripples the ground out from around him to knock another away as he lies there stunned.</p><p>Haru is handling the bulk of the assault, over a dozen of them. These hunters are quicker, smarter, and coordinated. They are not just throwing themselves into Makoto’s eager demon as they did the first time, and know to give a wide berth to Haru’s leashed pet and trailing renders. Makoto is defending Sousuke and himself from a group of five, slapping them away from Sousuke and attempting to bait them closer to him with his illusory twists and pulls. They’re not biting, they want Sousuke.</p><p>Move, Sousuke. It gets through this time. He clambers to his feet, and runs directly at Makoto, taking the hunters with him. The group of five realize too late what he’s working at. In range, Makoto catches one with his demon’s jagged clutch and tears it down and discards it. Makoto shuffles Sousuke behind him and blows back the remaining four into the throng playing whack-a-mole with Haru, disrupting their rhythm and giving Haru a chance to gain an upper hand.</p><p>Haru jumps into one rift and out of another. What of his rift he leaves behind takes shape as its menacing maw. It slams down from above, in from the sides, and up from the ground in snapping feints to keep the hunters split up and unable to gang up on him. He moves blisteringly fast, Sousuke can hardly make sense of where he is in his flow. It looks as one continuous ocean current weaving all around the area, with Haru both swimming it and wielding it, a lethal extension of himself.</p><p>Makoto follows up his defensive push back with an offensive twist, throwing two more to Haru’s</p><p>hungry pet. Like the school of fish, they explode. What parts of the two hunters aren’t eaten and unmade, bursts pebble-sized bits of demon out in all directions. Sousuke trips backwards as it pelts him, in a meek and pathetic attempt to avoid it.</p><p>Makoto and Haru are fully engaged with an entire hoard, all there for him. Sunrise has broken the horizon, and will soon stream through the trees, presenting another danger. Just the subtle shift in ambient light has slowed Haru down considerably, and Makoto was already flagging within minutes of fighting with the full stretch of his illusory manipulations on two fronts.</p><p>Naturally, the hunters compensate and adapt. Encroach and strike. Glancing at first, and then more solid and decisive as Makoto and Haru weaken and the hunters find their gaps. They can’t engage them all, and some break away for Sousuke only to be wrangled back nearly too late.</p><p>Sousuke is pinched. Worse than useless. He can’t leave them, but he can’t help either. Seconds feel like hours. Inevitably, one gets free and isn’t pulled back while in range. Despite the indescribable horror of being chased in the night, it was better when he couldn’t see their forms. The hunter with many faces coming right at him moves unnaturally. It is jerky and structureless, other than its always centered, always looking at him, kaleidoscopic shift of slate mask to haunting faces.</p><p>Sousuke turns and runs, but a pained shout from Haru of all beings gives him a false start. The hunter descends on him like a hawk outstretched for a midair catch, shoving him by his shoulders instead of lifting him away. He stumbles into a tree, snapping a thick low branch from it and tumbling with it to the ground.</p><p>Instinct rolls him onto his back, and instinct uses what’s available to defend himself when the hunter leaps at him again. He thrusts the pointed end of the snapped branch upward and drives it into the thing’s center. It meets resistance, impaling it.</p><p>The hunter convulses around the branch, its many mouths shrieking the same way as they shriek whenever Makoto tears one of them up. Its thick, tarry blood runs down the shaft of the branch in gobs, coating Sousuke’s hand, arm, and chest. It goes still, and drops as a lump of dead weight.</p><p>“Fuck, fuck, <em>fuck</em>,” Sousuke curses. He drops the branch which is a stupid idea as it was the only thing holding the disgusting demon up from flopping onto him into a pool of its own blood. He nearly has his legs cleared of it when Makoto catches up and tosses it to the side. Already, its corpse is disintegrating into ashes.</p><p>Makoto kneels next to Sousuke and searches him for injury even as he is roughed the world over with his own.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Sousuke insists as he sits up.</p><p>“You need to run,” Makoto pleads more than demands.</p><p>Sousuke doesn’t get a chance to protest or disobey. Haru fails to manage the hunters for the few seconds Makoto has left his side. Again, Makoto sends his twists through the ground to kick Sousuke like a can down the road and again he embroils himself in a brawl he can’t win, putting himself between Sousuke and his assailants. Haru joins him, effecting a wider barrier. He lashes out at the hunters with his pitch pulled to whips.</p><p>It doesn’t register right away that a forth non-hunter has literally walked onto the scene, as casual a gait as any meander through the woods would necessitate. He walks past where Sousuke is lame on his ass again, and stops just past him to assess.</p><p>“This isn’t working fast enough,” Rin says to himself.</p><p>“H-hey!” Sousuke calls. He gets up and walks at Rin, only for Rin to snap at a lagging hunter for its attention and sicc it on him.</p><p>It rushes at him, and stops just before toppling him. It is intelligent and aware of its space, chattering and teasing Sousuke with jabs and fake-outs and chattering more when he yells and backs up. When he tries to go around it, it attacks. If he stays put, it stares at him. It’s holding him here.</p><p>It holds him in place as Makoto is finally overwhelmed, when he goes down and Sousuke can’t see him through the disfigured forms surrounding and suffocating him. He lost Rin already. Haru is a wobbling tempest of himself and his fight, dodging the creeping sunbeams as it breaks through the trees.</p><p>“Makoto!” Sousuke ignores the jabs and pushes anyway, to be rewarded with a slash across his chest just deep enough to draw blood, not deep enough to threaten his life. He hisses and presses a hand to the gash, doubling forward over the sting and burn. The hunter screeches its very clear warning through dozens of mouths what will happen if he tries it again.</p><p>A full disorienting shift takes place in Sousuke’s understanding of the situation as the hunter mocks him, but does not attempt to capture him while it is able to. Makoto isn’t dead or further injured; he would feel that. Like Sousuke, he’s being held back. Sousuke is open for the taking while Makoto and Haru are weak. Rin is here, and should be here for him, but where he expects Gou he received a full on assault, implying a change in plans.</p><p>They’re not here for him at all.</p><p>Haru finally falters. His shadow retreats to beneath his feet, fleeing from the dawn. He’s scuffed and torn from top to bottom, too dirty to make the details out of what’s what from this distance, but teetering on collapse. His dozen or so hunters encircle him.</p><p>The shock of Rin’s red hair catches his eye, having walked his way towards Haru and standing now directly before him when the hunters part for him. Haru sends out his shadow, and Rin steps on it. Haru is unable to take it back, looking between it and Rin in disbelief. Rin’s shadow stepping prevents Haru from moving from his spot, the brighter the light becomes the less ground there is to move on.</p><p>Makoto breaks through his holds, but only long enough for Rin to notice and divert half of the hunters away from Haru to take care of it. Stupidly, Sousuke tries again, and this time takes a skewer extended from the black mass of the hunter through the top and out the bottom of his foot, impaled deep into the ground like a tent stake. It’s everything in him not to shout, only gasp and groan, as the hunter croaks <em>ah ah ah</em> at him disapprovingly. Sousuke can do nothing now but watch them down Makoto again. But the real sobering thoughts of helplessness coming from Makoto are directed at Haru.</p><p>Rin takes a step to the side, from where he has body blocked a beam of sunlight. Simultaneously, Makoto screams for Haru in a way Sousuke has never heard, curdled and anguished. Sousuke gasps in tandem, the tug of Makoto’s hysteria in his chest culminating into a wrecking ball smashing his heart against his spine.</p><p>Haru ignites into a fireball as soon as the unblocked beam casts over him. Only then does Rin step off his shadow. It dissipates in the light, crumbling away, and immediately the encircled hunters amass into one render and entomb Haru into themselves. Sousuke’s guard joins the mass, as does Makoto’s numerous assailants, freeing them both. The mass, with Haru burning at the center, begins to shrink.</p><p>Sousuke steps and regrets it, tender foot refusing to support his weight and Makoto’s emotional pummeling battling his own shock and despair, making him physically unstable. Rin on the other hand moves quickly. He leans into a run for the revolving mass. It’s a getaway, as Haru’s shadow serves. But Makoto is unburdened now, and quicker.</p><p>And angrier.</p><p>With a furious shout, Makoto throws Rin back from his exit with none of the restraint he uses when moving Sousuke to safety. Rin hits the ground hard and slides to a stop, slow to recover from the impact and flung too far to make it back in time now. Makoto meanwhile goes after the shrinking mass for Haru, and leaps at it just as it collapses into itself and disappears. He’s gone. All goes suddenly still, save the disintegrating corpses of the slain hunters blowing away on the morning breeze.</p><p>Sunlight floods the area, finally past the curve. Makoto turns and walks directly into it towards a downed Rin, heedless of the bursting burns blooming over his hands and face as he does it. As Makoto’s demon did to Sousuke, he does now to Rin strangling him at his neck and holding him high so he hangs from it. Rin, as Sousuke did, grasps at restraints he can’t see or touch. Unlike when Makoto threatened Sousuke though, Rin is unable to breathe or speak at all. Makoto and his demon are in agreement this time and he does not want to hear what Rin has to say.</p><p>“Makoto!” Sousuke shouts from his spot a few yards away. He’s made a limp out of his walk, but it’s slow moving. “Stop! Makoto! Don’t!”</p><p>Makoto doesn’t react, doesn’t indicate he hears Sousuke. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Rin as Rin struggles, feverishly at first, then weaker as the seconds tick on. The demon could eat him, Makoto could drain him, but he is choosing to enact this slow and roiling revenge and watch Rin die. That is neither Makoto nor Makoto’s demon. It is a free bleed of raw and maddening grief that Makoto will regret once he realizes what he’s done.</p><p>But Sousuke can’t neutralize him as Haru can. There’s no telling what will happen if Sousuke touches him in this state either. There’s one thing left to try. He comes at the scene from the side, and stands in front of Rin, disrupting Makoto’s unbroken line of sight.</p><p>“Move, Sousuke.” Not wholly him, but also devastatingly, partly him. That shakes Sousuke the most. He wants to be wrong about it, but he can’t call this entirely the will of Makoto’s demon suppressing Makoto’s better nature.</p><p>“No,” he replies. “Stop this. You don’t want to hurt anyone.”</p><p>“He killed Haru.”</p><p>“No he didn’t,” Sousuke wagers. “You don’t know that. What if you’re wrong? How will you feel about this if you’re wrong? He wants to help.”</p><p>Makoto steps back, confusion on his brow. His burns blacken. “How would you know?” Less demon lacing his tone, more Makoto brandishing the eternal hopefulness he can’t rid himself of even now.</p><p>“Stop killing him first and I’ll tell you.”</p><p>It hangs in suspension for another long and arduous moment as Makoto decides what to do, if he trusts Sousuke as much Sousuke hopes he does. Finally, Rin audibly and painfully gasps behind Sousuke, then falls from his held height to the ground with no legs ready to catch him.</p><p>Sousuke exhales the teeth-cracking tension from his body, joints wobbling and a flood of held back terror crashing through his veins and dropping him to his knees. Makoto doesn’t approach either of them, looking on at Sousuke with sorrow, seeing him hurt and yet in too precarious a position himself to address it. He pays no mind to his own gouges and gashes and burns, even as the scorch spreads across his cheeks and over his nose.</p><p>“...Get out... of the... sun,” Sousuke says through labored breaths.</p><p>Makoto looks down at his hands like they belong to someone else. The fissures on his palms and face deepen, the severity of his condition settles into his weakened bones. The honed focus in his eyes blurs and distances and he is suddenly unsteady on his feet.</p><p>“Makoto?”</p><p>“I— Haru—” And Makoto drops where he stands, out of fight and consciousness.</p><p>Acutely concerned with it getting any worse, Sousuke moves to him to drag him out of the light, hooking him under his arms. He’s more relieved Makoto is down for the count than worried any injury is permanent. Rin has recovered enough to sit up and watch him struggle to move Makoto into the shade.</p><p>“Maybe help?” he snaps.</p><p>Rin sighs, the most inconvenienced man in the world, but joins Sousuke’s endeavor by grabbing Makoto’s ankles and giving him the extra lift he needs.</p><p>He tosses his head to the cabin behind them. “Inside, if you can make time for it inbetween appointments of fucking us over.”</p><p>Rin rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”</p><p>They work together long enough for Sousuke to wrangle the doors and get Makoto to the safety of his room, finally setting him down next to his futon so as not to stain it irreparably. Rin dumps him, all but dropping his feet, and leaves the room before Sousuke can finish calling him an asshole for it.</p><p>Time catches up with Sousuke when they’re alone. He lingers.</p><p>Makoto’s burns are so deep Sousuke can hardly look at it, worse knowing even the meager amount of help he could offer before is no longer an option if Haru’s warning is to be heeded. Makoto is graciously out cold, making no indication he feels any of it or knows Sousuke is there, or reacting as Sousuke lightly touches his face with his stained hands for Sousuke’s own selfish peace of mind.</p><p>Makoto’s pullover is a disaster, soaked with that thick black blood and torn to shreds. Sousuke removes it when he sees he has an undershirt, as a courtesy he would hope Makoto would extend him were he passed out and covered in sulfuric demon guts. He tries to avoid the burns, but it is an exercise in futility when he discovers the scorch is beneath his clothes, too. Sousuke finally arranges his limbs for a comfortable longer rest and caves on not ruining his futon with bloodstains when he drags the pillow over for his head. It doesn’t seem right to leave him prone and tangled on a hard wooden floor in the dark.</p><p>Better.</p><p>There is a bitterness building in the corners of Sousuke’s mouth knowing Rin and the rest of this mess must be addressed before Sousuke can begin to allow himself to feel as shaken and fragile as he is. That he can’t feel what he should be feeling having seen Haru burn like that. That he can’t share the shattering horror he felt reverberate inside his ribcage as Makoto watched his dearest companion combust and disappear. That lying down next to Makoto and resting with him, simply resting and recuperating, is a concept further away than it’s ever been.</p><p>But what of the alternative, had they never been found?</p><p>Forced to live with Makoto, attached to him and frustrated by his indefinite confinement, would he have ever come to feel as recklessly about him as he does? Would this bitterness taste different without the bond they have, forged in the way it was? Unknowable, unless he continues to embrace the idea he would do it all again for what he’s gained. He does believe it, despite not considering himself a man of unknowable faiths. Makoto is responsible for a number of exceptions in the way he thinks about his life, though.</p><p>Not the love thing. He has always been too quick to that. Too serious about it. Too trusting. Too resigned, too indifferent even, to its one-sidedness, and above all always too poorly timed. This is no different.</p><p>Already Makoto’s burns are not as angry and deep as they were a moment ago. Sousuke’s wounds on the other hand are fully throbbing and need tending. And Rin has a few questions to answer.</p><hr/><p>Cleaned up, bandaged up (poorly), and changed, Sousuke hobbles to and settles at the table where Rin has made himself comfortable. Sousuke hadn’t entertained the idea that Rin could run, but still finds he is surprised to see him still here. It does ease his worry that Rin acted maliciously. Of course there’s a story.</p><p>Sousuke knows better than he did their first meeting; Rin’s apparent disaffect is a thick cover for all manner of emotion. Direct will be best if he wants information.</p><p>“Why?” Sousuke opens, cutting to it.</p><p>Rin doesn’t meet his eyes. “When he wakes up, I’m going to have to explain all of this again. You can wait.”</p><p>“Poor you. We just watched our friend burn to death.”</p><p>“He’s not dead,” Rin answers bitterly, eyes darting to Sousuke’s before looking away again. “Chill out.”</p><p>“Chill out? We had a plan.”</p><p>“Plans change.”</p><p>Sousuke drops his miserable face into his miserable hands and groans miserably before trying again. Miserably. “Why are you being an asshole to me specifically? I’m trying to understand you Rin but you don’t make it easy.”</p><p>“Don’t flatter yourself.”</p><p>“So you’re just like this. Noted.” Rin doesn’t react and Sousuke’s signature abundance of patience is thinning by the second. He reassesses his approach. Makoto likes to be met where he is. Rin may need some provocation. “Do you or do you not care about the dad thing because you act a lot like you still care.”</p><p>Rin glowers at him, sharp teeth flashing in his sneer. “Mind your own fucking business.”</p><p>That’s a yes. “So tell me why him and not me.”</p><p>“I will. When Makoto is awake. I don’t like to repeat myself.”</p><p>Sousuke fully drops his forehead to the worn wood table with a resigned <em>thunk</em>. “Is it leverage?” he asks into his lap. “He won’t try to kill you again if that’s what you’re worried about.”</p><p>“And isn’t that too bad.”</p><p>Sousuke looks up, setting his chin on the table. Rin is staring off into nowhere again. It is strangely difficult to stay angry at him. Then again, Rin clearly carries enough anger for himself for the both of them.</p><p>“Does no one appreciate my saving their life?” Not that Rin would know exactly what other instances Sousuke is referencing, but two can play at a game of cryptic statements.</p><p>“Let him do it next time. If it were Gou and not Haru, and Makoto and not me, I wouldn’t have hesitated.”</p><p>“You guys and your death complexes.”</p><p>“Spare me. You told me you’d die for your master.”</p><p>Sousuke chooses not to take umbrage with the framing, but it does put a bristle on his back. “For a greater good. To get rid of a bad guy if there was no other option. Wouldn’t you do that for someone you cared about?”</p><p>Here, Rin surprises him. “Maybe so. I just have a hard time believing you could care about one of them that much so soon.”</p><p>“It’s a bit of a curse,” Sousuke jests morosely, winning him the faintest tug of a smirk. “But really, that’s just how I am. I’ve had enough people shuffle in and out of my life to know who I want to stay in it.”</p><p>“Then you’re a moron.”</p><p>“So I am constantly told.” It feels like an inroad, like Rin has un-pricked just slightly having been allowed to insult him without Sousuke turning it into a fight. Whatever it takes, he supposes. “Is Haru going to be okay?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Rin answers. “Depends if he escaped.”</p><p>Interesting. That’s a lot more than nothing. “Should I believe he did?”</p><p>“Can’t take him out even when I try.”</p><p>
  
</p><p>This is difficult to parse without more information, but the small reassurance is heartening. Sousuke is less miserable. As if to complement his renewed hope, the room brightens as the full morning glow outside leaks in through the single window near the door. He pulls his chin off the table and returns to a more mature position. “You knew he would be okay?”</p><p>Rin sighs in response to Sousuke’s obvious ploy to wear him down through peripheral questions. “No, I didn’t.”</p><p>“Then why did you—”</p><p>“I don’t think you understand what Gou meant when she told you we are <em>cursed</em>. We <em>have</em> to do what we are told to do. We don’t just feel sad like you if we don’t obey his orders. It’s a blood curse, not a servant’s curse. There is no parasitic relationship here that mandates taking care of us. We agreed to terms and if we don’t meet them, we are disposable.” Simple will defiance for them is a matter of life and death. It would explain why they always strictly do as they’re asked despite how they speak their allegiance to the contrary. “That doesn’t mean we don’t find ways around it. I was asked to take the hunters out and get Makoto and Haru. I was not asked to deliver them.”</p><p>“...You didn’t try to take Makoto,” Sousuke points out flatly, suspicious now.</p><p>Caught in a lie, Rin shifts in his seat and his next words are not so blisteringly self-righteous. “I got mad.”</p><p>“At Haru?”</p><p>“He did this to us.” By turning their father and forcing their hand. “I thought I would take him alone and… I don’t know. I just saw red and an opportunity. If not to punch him in the face, then force him to see what sort of life he damned us to.”</p><p>“Isn’t that disobeying? What would happen to Gou?”</p><p>“I didn’t say it was smart, all right?” Rin then folds in on himself. It’s more telling on his condition than when he shouts and curses and makes a scene. He’ll walk out if Sousuke shames him for it. Sousuke doesn’t want to lose this connection. He will need Rin for whatever is next, somehow. So he drops it.</p><p>“Whoever drafts the contracts for hell curses needs to be fired. Why wouldn’t it be implied you deliver them?”</p><p>Rin laughs at this, but not at Sousuke’s joke. It’s dark and hollow. “I think it operates exactly as intended. Enough leash to hang ourselves with, not enough to ever make us feel safe for even a minute. We are constantly doubting if we’re right, wrong, obeying, disobeying. Every. Fuckin’. Thing. We. Do. Is like watching each other decide which wire defuses a bomb counting down from ten out of forty-nine other live ones that will detonate it. That’s pretty hellish if you ask me. Perfectly in line with eternal torment.”</p><p>Sousuke has no rebuttal to it, no silver lining. The only good thing he’s done is convince Makoto to let Rin live, because he really wouldn’t have deserved to die. Makoto will understand that better than Sousuke once he wakes up. “We’re gonna end it.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Not convinced, just not interested in the hopeful hypotheticals he likely stopped waxing about after the 1800s. Rin sits up out of his slouch and reaches to the chair on the right for the canvas backpack he doesn’t seem to part with. From the main pouch he procures a generic meal bar and water bottle.</p><p>Sousuke likes food as much as the next mortal, but the thought of having to worry about human food for the duration of his multi-century servitude sounds awful. At least the vampires can get by without blood for stretches of time. Mortals have to eat constantly. Rin looks at Sousuke who is staring at the bar, and slides the bar and bottle across the table to him. “They forget to feed you, don’t they? You’re lookin’ at it like a little orphaned street beggar.”</p><p>How annoyingly right he is. Sousuke picks it up before he remembers it’s not cool to look desperate. Too famished and parched to care. “Thanks. They are terrible pet owners.”</p><p>“Figures.” A second bar appears for himself.</p><p>Synthetic dubiously edible chalk and yet absolutely incredible. He downs half the water and gives the bottle back, as Rin isn’t carrying extra of that. Sousuke will count Rin’s thawing out among one of his more impressive social accomplishments. There’s a natural easiness lapping between them that is a balm Sousuke didn’t know he needed, and appears to be something Rin could use. He continues to make friends in strange places under impossible circumstances.</p><p>Makoto rouses, whether it be because of Sousuke’s warming mood or by the mounting of Makoto’s icey despair even in repose. An empty hole opens up in Sousuke, which fills in with images of Haru burning, Haru looking at Makoto through the flames, and Haru disappearing. The spontaneity, the intensity, of the flames so loud and crackling no one would’ve heard Haru… His hands shake and pressure builds behind his eyes. The sheer brutality of this life isn’t going to leave much of him left standing if he makes it out alive.</p><p>“Hey.” Rin comes into focus, snapping rudely for his attention. His sharp contours are pointed with concern. Less and less does he seem a heartless bastard corrupted by unforgiving circumstances and more does he seem ruthlessly determined to make it through with his compassion and self intact. “This shit is tough but you can’t break like this.”</p><p>Sousuke shakes his head. “I’m not breaking. Makoto is awake.”</p><p>“Trust that I know a man on the brink when I see him. You’re fine until you’re not.”</p><p>He looks down at his hands, still trembling. A damning indictment. Makoto can’t do that to him. “Not much choice.”</p><p>“No,” Rin agrees. “Just… be more aware of what’s happening to you.”</p><p>“Thanks. I think.”</p><p>Rin clicks his tongue. “I mean if you don’t ignore it, it won’t knock you on your ass as hard when it catches up with you. Put a little bell on it. All I’m sayin’.” He stretches his hands tall over his head and leans side to side, then slouches down onto an elbow. “But hey, I’m a fuck up with a rap sheet, not a life coach. Just my unsolicited advice.”</p><p>Sousuke drops his hands to his thighs and rubs some feeling back into his palms. “I’ll, uh, do my best.”</p><p>Makoto is mobile in his room, presumably going through the same maintenance dance Sousuke already did in terms of clean up and changing clothes. He’s been out over an hour; hopefully he’s not a patchwork pile of charcoal anymore. When he finally emerges, Rin has long since split another meal bar with him and gone quiet once more. Sousuke would call him nervous at this point in his fledgling ability to read him.</p><p>Makoto wastes no time with pleasantries when he joins them. He stands at a distance, unsure even of Sousuke. He’s cleared up well enough that Sousuke can look at him this time. “If he’s alive, tell me where he is.”</p><p>“Don’t know,” Rin answers. “If he’s alive, he escaped.”</p><p>“Why did you take him?”</p><p>“Because I was asked to.” Little lie. Sousuke lets it slide. “I wasn’t told to personally deliver him, and there’s all sorts of ways to outsmart those corrupted hunters.”</p><p>Blood cursing is a thing Makoto is apparently familiar with, as he doesn’t ask for clarification. “Then why try to escape with him?”</p><p>“Because I knew you’d try to kill me. Good guess, right?” He grins briefly then sighs. “The question is… do <em>you</em> believe he got away? If he had the chance.”</p><p>“Of course he did,” Makoto says without missing a beat.</p><p>“Then I didn’t kill him. Though, I don’t suppose that does much for how you feel about it all.”</p><p>“It doesn’t,” Makoto confirms coldly. “I just want him back. Take me to the ship.”</p><p>Rin shakes his head. “No can do.”</p><p>An incredulous statement for Sousuke as well as Makoto. “You manipulated his shadow.”</p><p>He points to his teeth, sharp and… strange. “I got a little scrambled when I signed my soul over. Demon adjacent, not a demon. I can interact with your bullshit, not make my own. Besides, the ship isn’t <em>here</em>.”</p><p>“Then how do I get to where it is?”</p><p>Rin casts a glance to the window. “Mmm… they’ll be back for me in a few hours? Time is funky out there. Cap won’t like that I’m gone but not dead. Hitch a ride. Or don’t. I don’t give a shit what you vamps do.”</p><p>“Dammit,” Makoto curses, rather terse for him and harsh on Sousuke’s ears. He’s out of his element and at a complete loss of control. There’s no way Sousuke can sit here with both of them all day twiddling his thumbs and waiting for a rift ride to wherever Haru may or may not be. Makoto will lose out to his impatient demon before then, or Rin will.</p><p>He looks at Makoto, run down and in no state to deal with all of this, physically or otherwise. Haru’s strength and general livelihood is unknown. Sousuke is always useless. Rin is a chaotic unknown at best.</p><p>“Can only Haru and uh, the other hunters… move like that?”</p><p>Rin tilts his head. “What to the ship? All vamps are demons. Demons can move. Haru has a certain way to move and specializes. Didn’t they teach you anything?”</p><p>Sousuke recalls Haru’s explanation of the vessel of pitch in hell that he draws from. It’s what tethers the mortal and the demon to that plane. Makoto should have something too, whatever holds him in suspension between worlds that makes him impossible to fully grasp. Aside from when Sousuke pulls him through it temporarily. The thing he isn’t supposed to do because it is separating him from his body and Makoto will eat him on accident if they don’t end this soon.</p><p>“Sousuke?” Makoto inquires.</p><p>“Zszzt,” he shushes. “I’m thinking.” For Makoto to embrace hell and use it to move as Haru does, he needs... energy. The way he’s supposed to get it, what they’re supposed to do. “Makoto you need to drink.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“You can move too but you need energy. So, feed. Drink. Whatever. Just don’t kill me, as usual.”</p><p>Rin strokes a thumb along his jawline, humor morbidly piqued. “You make sacrifice sound so blasé.”</p><p>Makoto stares at Sousuke like he’s lost his mind. “I won’t do that.”</p><p>This will be a climb. “That or you’re sitting here until nightfall for a way in that could go anywhere. You control it, Rin can land it.”</p><p>Rin rolls his eyes. “What makes you think I’ll help that vamp do a damn thing?”</p><p>Sousuke has this one. “Because you failed your mission, and your sister is the penalty, and at least he can help do something about it.”</p><p>His lack of snark is submission enough. “Putting my limited capacity for trust into a vampire of my own asshole boss’s curseline. Love this for me.”</p><p>Anyway, it’s an obvious solution. It’s also an impossible decision for Makoto in the moment, one that unravels his already fraying state. Sousuke is uncomfortably pinned by Makoto’s hungry gaze raking over him and the seething loathing he beats himself up with in response to it. It reaches a pitch of white noise and abruptly, Makoto turns and leaves the cabin entirely.</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“Give it a minute,” Rin says as he waves a dismissive hand. “I told you what he’d do if it ever came down to Haru, didn’t I?”</p><p>Sousuke glares at Rin as he stands and prepares to go after him, to the detriment of his still injured foot. “Not helpful.”</p><p>“But I’m right! I’ll come collect your corpse!” Rin makes sure Sousuke hears it as the door closes behind him.</p><p>Outside, Makoto keeps to the shade but manages to move quicker than Sousuke can hope to catch up with. He calls after him to no effect, and resigns to follow him for as long as it takes. He also knows this is the direction of that creek, and unless Makoto is up for a hip-high swim, he should stop there and give Sousuke a chance to get to him. He will never complain about his boring and drama-free life ever again once this is over.</p><p>As Sousuke predicted, Makoto stops at the water’s edge some twenty minutes away. He never tried to shirk Sousuke, so he must not care or mind to be caught. “What’re you doing, Makoto? It’s broad daylight. Can’t we argue about it inside where you don’t burn?”</p><p>Makoto stands over the creek, staring into his distorted reflection in the choppy current. It’s the first time he’s seen Makoto acknowledge his reflection in anything.</p><p>“I can’t—” Makoto starts, voice hoarse and dropping out. “I can’t look at him.”</p><p>Rin.</p><p>“I want to hurt him.” A grim grey ashiness on his irritated skin amplifies how dour his confession carries. “That ugly thing in me doesn’t have to lift a finger to overpower me. I already want to.”</p><p>Sousuke walks up the slippery rocks to stand next to him. “I know. I could hear it in your voice before.”</p><p>“I showed you what they did back then.” A broken, burning trail of destruction. “And now, again.”</p><p>“They’re trapped like you.”</p><p>“I know.” A breeze fills in the space where Makoto’s reply should’ve gone had he not snapped it. He closes his eyes. “That’s why it feels so ugly. I can’t feed on you, Sousuke. I’ll do something bad if I do. If not to you, then certainly him. I’m not ready for this.”</p><p>On one hand, Makoto is not his demon. He makes it a point to distance himself from it when he speaks of it. And it’s not wrong. But it’s not all true either. Haru is proof of that; he wields his as an extension of himself. It never overtakes him, but he never hides it either. He understands it and what it can do, he knows more than Makoto knows about their shared condition, intrinsically, because he listens to what it has to say. There is an answer here Makoto has not been willing to entertain. But things are different now.</p><p>He takes Makoto’s hand into his own, for reasons unknown to him. “There’s no time to become ready. You’ll never get rid of this thing if you don’t take a risk to understand it.”</p><p>“Ha.” He limply squeezes Sousuke’s hand in return. “Don’t waste your time.”</p><p>“I’m serious. You’ve kept it locked up all this time and can still contain it when it gets loose. Even when you think it’s gone, it still shows up and you manage all right. And you need it now to get what you want. So… let it through. It’s <em>you,</em> as much as you hate it and didn’t want it.”</p><p>“There is no one to stop me if I can’t stop myself.”</p><p>“Give yourself some credit. You’re not going to kill Rin, you’re just really mad at him. There is no difference between those two points, I’m finding with that guy. You’ve proven you can hear me, and you haven’t hurt me even at your most fragile. Haru plays with way more fire than you and he is still here... More than here. Haru isn’t the one fading, Makoto.”</p><p>If Sousuke is accidentally stumbling upon the idea that Haru is only distanced from Makoto because Makoto refuses to see all of himself, well. He isn’t coming up with a counterpoint to that theory. And Makoto, who is smart and observant, must hear that implication. He doesn’t flat out deny it. In fact, he comes to a turning point much the same as Sousuke has. Loss has that retrospective effect on people.</p><p>Makoto drops his hand and folds his arms. “It’s my fault he’s moving away from me, isn’t it?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t frame it as anyone’s fault.” But he sort of is. Just not in the deeply personal way Makoto is taking it. It’s the Fisherman’s fault, on a personal level, but that’s for later and not up for debate.</p><p>Makoto isn’t sad though. He’s staunch and clear. “Haru was right; I haven’t accepted what we were dealt. He overcompensates to protect us. And I couldn’t save him, because I wasn’t strong enough. I’m never ready to be strong enough.”</p><p>“You are, but you’re holding back.”</p><p>Deadset on a frank reckoning, Makoto is testy and displeased with Sousuke’s aspiratious pivot. “And if I just take your word for it and trust you, it’ll be fine?”</p><p>Sousuke laughs at that, for how ridiculous it is. “<em>Please</em> don’t take my word for it I don’t know shit about demons. Just fuckin’... I dunno. Trust yourself? I trust you, Haru trusts you. Haru’s at least pretty smart so he’s onto something. But it doesn’t matter what we think. You gotta trust you most. Take that hope and do something with it instead of sitting there and laundering it through other people. I think that’s what Haru has been saying.”</p><p>It must be a first for a mortal to deliver the argument <em>for</em> having a vampire take their blood but Sousuke will generally try anything once and has never been afraid to be the first to do it, either. His brain is maybe not the dried out log of meatloaf he feared it was after this whole experience if it can still synthesize what he’s passively learning about others and make sense of it to deliver crucial speeches at now-or-never times. It’s clear now his career calling is in timeshare sales.</p><p>“Go into this with more than a chance,” Sousuke finishes. “Don’t throw yourself away. I don’t… want this to be the end. For…” Don’t say <em>us</em>. Too clingy. “You or Haru.” Or Rin or Gou. Secretly. With therapy. “Show up to win and use everything you got.”</p><p>There’s a chance he used a derivative of that line on Sei in university before his swim meets, but it landed well then and Makoto takes to it now so if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.</p><p>Makoto turns to him. “Thank you. If you’re really sure about it… Well, I don’t know what else to do.”</p><p>“I’m sure. Surer than you.”</p><p>“Look.” Makoto turns back to the water, inviting Sousuke to peer down with him.</p><p>It’s just their reflections over rocks. Sousuke is not pleased with how haggard he has become and looks past himself at a few minnows swimming in place, darting laterally, dashing off. “Me? You?”</p><p>“Look closer.”</p><p>He does. He waits. Focusing on either of them isn’t easy, but he finds over time focusing on Makoto’s reflection is peculiarly difficult. The current isn’t the problem; there hardly is one. Makoto’s image slips around in wavy vertical stripes, reminiscent of the glitchy effect Sousuke sees when his illusions are not fully set or not working on Sousuke as they should. But there’s more to it here, like a number on a color blindness chart just eluding his ability to see it in totality.</p><p>Between the wavy lines of Makoto reflection, peeking directly at Sousuke from behind the bars, is a beast. Like Haru’s. Like the hunters. It doesn’t look exactly like anything, a rorschach of human form and face and otherness. But it’s his, and unmistakably him. It’s what lends the predatory glow to his eyes and the snarl to his fury. The weight of its gaze follows Sousuke though he can’t see what it gazes with, exactly.</p><p>“It’s always watching you like that.” He pulls back and takes Sousuke with him by his shoulder. “You’re <em>sure</em>?”</p><p>It is unnerving. But what does it change? “I would’ve done it to you three times over by now.” Firmly, but affectionately, he gives the top of Makoto’s shoulder a squeeze. “We do what we gotta do.”</p><p>Makoto nods, resolute. “Then I suggest you sit somewhere.”</p><p>Never a demand, as always. Sousuke chooses a dry spot in the shade, beneath an evergreen with plenty of cover for both of them. Makoto sits facing him, off to Sousuke’s side. It’s ritualistic in tone and setting, and way too calm and peaceful near the stream for what’s about to happen.</p><p>Now that this isn’t hypothetical anymore and directly in front of him, he’s afraid. It will hurt. It could kill him, even if Makoto doesn’t mean to. There might not be another side. A nauseous flutter crawls up his torso.</p><p>Makoto reaches for and holds Sousuke’s face. “You’re afraid.”</p><p>A nervous laugh escapes him. “Yeah I think I’m terrified.”</p><p>“I don’t know why but I’m relieved you are.” He pauses and gathers more words to explain. “You’re so fearless most of the time I sometimes wonder if any of this fazes you.”</p><p>“You’re an expert in calling someone dumb without them ever noticing, aren’t you?”</p><p>“Am I? Since you noticed.”</p><p>Sousuke is impressed. He adores what little of Makoto’s impishness he is able to witness. May this not be the last time. His mirth over the exchange brightens and fades and he takes a deep breath. “Makoto, if I don’t—”</p><p>Makoto shakes his head whip-quick even before he starts and cuts him off with a bold and bright kiss. And on the crest of its momentum, he breaks from it. He moves his hand from holding Sousuke’s face to the back of his head. He pulls on Sousuke’s neck to his right to expose the left side, and before Sousuke understands what he’s doing, Makoto sinks the fangs Sousuke can never see into the soft flesh of his neck.</p><p>It pierces white hot, and his sharp and pained gasp carries into the trees above. Makoto retracts from the free-bleeding wound he makes, covers over it with his mouth, and drains.</p><p>(Over Makoto’s shoulder, Sousuke spots Rin staring on at a distance, stunned, and Sousuke can’t figure which part stuns him more: the kiss or the feeding. Then again, Rin was sure the feeding would happen, wasn’t he?)</p><p>Sousuke jerks and tries to get loose of it, survival instincts revving and moving his body against his will. The slightest tremor in Makoto’s grasp is not because Makoto can’t hold him in place, that’s easy for him. It’s that he’s one of the hunters, holding Sousuke down like struggling prey, that weakens him. He stays committed, though it hurts them both. He can’t take it back and there is no mistaking the famished greediness with which he drinks. He wants it.</p><p>For his part, Sousuke anchors his gaze on Rin, a red target to hold himself to, as his heart pumps fast. Thunderously so.</p><p>But in the next moment it is slow, and</p><p>between blinks,</p><p>imperceptible. Makoto drains each surge. Reality distorts in spots, then in swaths, and turns back on him and consumes him, too.</p><p>The red target blurs into the trees,</p><p>his erratically punchy breaths slow to shallow echoing wisps in the foggy cavern of his head,</p><p>(maybe, here, he finally cracks and says don’t kill me)</p><p>and the rest is up to Makoto.</p><p>
  
  
  
  
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. that weird shit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Oh, here again.</p>
<p>This time Sousuke knows right away he isn’t Makoto, only a passenger. And it isn’t in the past, it is now. This may be because he is also aware on some level that Makoto is carrying him. Not only that he sees his limp and blood-stained body from Makoto’s peripheral, but that a part of him is still <em>in</em> that body and feels the distant, but solid support of Makoto’s hold behind his back and under his knees.</p>
<p>This is probably bad. He should be unconscious or dead and isn’t either. Maybe it’s that thing Haru was talking about. But he didn’t put himself here and he doesn’t know how to go back. He can only do what Makoto does again, and silently witness.</p>
<p>Where the hell are they?</p>
<p>It’s dark, the sense of it is overpowering. Night but not a normal night. The utter absence of a moon and its ambient light is a feature. What light is present is anemic and unnatural, coming from a number of pathfinding hanging lanterns swinging from dead and gnarled trees. It’s a forest, but long past its flourishing peak. Everything is crumbling, some trees so delicate and old they are little more than structures of charcoal, disintegrating under the light of the lanterns.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to wear yourself out,” Makoto says after a long and silent stretch of time. It is Makoto, right? All him? Sousuke can’t tell. “I can’t find where to go without you. It would be foolish to kill you.”</p>
<p>“That’s cute,” Rin replies from a safe distance behind them. “Do anything else stupid and I’ll kill him.”</p>
<p>Always with the killing. From Sousuke’s vantage point in the shadows of Makoto’s inner consciousness, he <em>boils </em>in response to the threat. It’s then Sousuke realizes he isn’t alone in Makoto’s mind.</p>
<p><em>Let me handle it</em>, he thinks. <em>I’m stronger than him.</em></p>
<p><em>Help me protect Sousuke,</em> Makoto answers to that part of himself instead. <em>That is stronger.</em></p>
<p>The othering presence retreats. The anger is shared, but redirected.</p>
<p>Outwardly, Makoto is crisp and cool. “You didn’t need to involve Sousuke.”</p>
<p>“Ohhhh yeah, I absofuckinglutely did.” Rin is hoarse and winded. Could be wounded, or whatever he’s doing to force Makoto to only look forward is draining him. “Or did you forget trying to tear my throat out already?”</p>
<p>“You startled me while I was trying to... I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Such a prim explanation for the residual emotional carnage in Makoto’s mind currently poisoning his thoughts and constitution. He fought hard for the common ground Sousuke just witnessed. He didn’t compromise himself and he didn’t suppress his demon, two ways it would’ve been easier just to get by. He stood firm against it and instead showed it a different perspective.</p>
<p>“I can’t defend myself against you. You can break my hold any time. But you have to drop him to do it and I can easily off him the second you do. Then you won’t have him to eat. Call it my insurance policy.”</p>
<p>Makoto falls quiet again. His fury is too potent to speak calmly over. The look into Makoto’s psyche, how it operates in the present, is equal parts enlightening and deeply invasive. Sousuke wants out. He doesn’t like it, knowing Makoto values his privacy and how much care he takes to think before he speaks. He wouldn’t want anyone in his mind like this.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t going to drain him dead.”</p>
<p>Rin snorts. “He sure looked not alive. Good thing I interrupted if you really mean that.”</p>
<p>He sighs. “Where are you taking us?”</p>
<p>“Just keep going.”</p>
<p>There is no further verbal direction, and there are no roads or landmarks to suggest any one way is different from another. Only endless decay surrounding endless lanterns stringing them along. It seems wherever Rin is taking them isn’t fussy about the sanctity of cardinal directions. This, along with this never-night atmosphere, brings Sousuke to the tentative conclusion that this isn’t anywhere. It’s somewhere in between.</p>
<p>Anxiety bubbles up in Makoto as a slow burn the longer it goes on. Rin walking him out this way makes him feel like a prisoner being walked to his execution, if Sousuke’s reading it right. Makoto looks down periodically at Sousuke’s body, each time he does it a flicker of hope ignites and extinguishes just as quickly to see he’s still limp and lifeless.</p>
<p>It’s impossible for either of them to fake how they feel to the other, but the confirmation through his first class seat in Makoto’s mind that Sousuke is important to him is… something Sousuke doesn’t want to eavesdrop on, sure, but maybe something that he needed nonetheless.</p>
<p>Abruptly, the woodline breaks to a sheer cliff Makoto almost doesn’t see. He stops hard and wobbles over an edge, crumbling some of the arid dirt away and down into oblivion below. Sousuke’s added weight makes it a near fatal mistake. Makoto pulls and squeezes him inward to counteract the inertia he adds. Beyond is a vast nothing, above, below, or in the distance.</p>
<p>“Keep going,” Rin says.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Keep walking. It’s not what it looks like.”</p>
<p>“No,” all corners of Makoto refuse. “Not with him. Prove it to me first.”</p>
<p>“I am not letting you go.”</p>
<p>“Then I’m not taking another step.”</p>
<p>Rin heaves an exasperated garble of obscenities. “Put him down. Then I’ll show you.”</p>
<p>Makoto contemplates it, muscles tensing and releasing in anticipation of putting Sousuke down then changing his mind back and forth. He ultimately thinks it is worth the gamble, and pivots to lay Sousuke’s body down on the flattest patch of dirt he can find.</p>
<p><em>Strike now,</em> Makoto says.</p>
<p><em>No, </em>Makoto also says. <em>He is not the enemy.</em></p>
<p>A string pulled impossibly taut releases as Rin allows Makoto out of whatever bind he had him in. Makoto’s entire body snaps over a head-splitting hold of tension, sending a shudder down his spine. Rin’s hold is forceful and rough, an unrefined technique.</p>
<p>Makoto turns to face him. Sousuke can see Rin now, but what he sees doesn’t lend any better explanation for what all is going on. Rin is as he always looks, dressed like he’s on his way to a metal concert in an offshoot of Haru’s misfit highschool lunch table look, but he’s holding an irregularly shaped shard of mirror in one hand. Makoto’s demon eyes it with ire as Makoto reassures himself it’s just for Rin’s protection. Let him feel safe.</p>
<p>Rin walks around Makoto and Sousuke, but makes sure Sousuke is square between them for his leverage. The ground is cold and despite Makoto’s best efforts, hard bits of splintered wood and rock dig into his back. The bit of Sousuke still in the body is as always, uncomfortable.</p>
<p>“This place is broken,” Rin explains. He goes to the edge of the cliff, and steps off it halfway. His foot is on solid ground that isn’t visible. The half of him over the edge shimmers and glitches out. “Believe me now?”</p>
<p>Makoto masks his unease as he responds. “Where does it go?”</p>
<p>Rin steps back to visible ground. “To Gou, I hope. And if so, maybe to Haru.”</p>
<p>“Maybe?”</p>
<p>“For fuck’s sake do I look like I’m omniscient? I have no fucking idea where he ended up if he escaped.” Rin winds it back and clears his throat when Makoto, Makoto’s demon, and probably Sousuke transcending the limit of whatever this is, collectively bury him with contempt for his tone. “I know if it was near Cap’s ship, she would’ve helped him if she were able. That’s what I mean.”</p>
<p>Why isn’t she with Rin now, is a question Sousuke has some space to contemplate.</p>
<p>“Why isn’t she here now?”</p>
<p>Coincidence.</p>
<p>Rin looks poised to fire back with his shit again, but thinks better of it this time. “His little stunt,” he throws a nod towards Sousuke, “got her thrown out here. We had a deadline to bring him back by and he convinced her to give him an extra night. But we are punished for not obeying. She’s nicer than me.”</p>
<p>That’s an understatement.</p>
<p>“That’s an understatement.” Makoto blinks in surprise to his own sarcastic retort and shakes his head.</p>
<p>Oh that’s not good. Not a coincidence. Sousuke needs to get out of Makoto’s head. Any guilt Sousuke feels over being the cause of Rin’s and Gou’s separation is quickly supplanted by alarm.</p>
<p>Rin only raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t know Makoto enough to sense it was not something Makoto would say. “Anyway. Through here. Or don’t; again, I expect nothing useful of you. Stay stuck in nowhere, it’s one less vamp I gotta deal with. You’ll just kill him later anyway to save your pal, then you’ll be all super powered. What a headache.”</p>
<p>Makoto looks to Sousuke. His inner demon is anxiously pounding on the gates of his mind to get him back, for some reason Sousuke can’t pick apart, not privy to the logic of the beast Makoto is trying to cooperate with. “Can I take him again?”</p>
<p>Rin waves his mirror shard in front of himself. “Me first.”</p>
<p>“...Fine.” Makoto grinds his teeth over his acquiescence, but calmly stands still so Rin can hold the shard in front of him.</p>
<p>Sousuke stitches together what’s going on when there is no reflection in the piece Rin holds. Silver-backed won’t reflect him, as Makoto mentioned once. It must interfere with Makoto’s illusions somehow, rendering him the target of his own manipulations. At least, that’s in line with Rin’s claim that he can only interfere with their abilities, and doesn’t have his own. Rin may be a tough person to like, but he’s easy to respect. He’s incredibly smart and quick. Neutralizing Makoto’s illusions with a fucking mirror is not something one million Sousukes in a room with one million years to find a counter to a demonic illusory ability could’ve come up with.</p>
<p>Makoto willingly gives Rin the handle to his leash, manipulating some aspect between them for his mirror to capture and bounce back. This is a very Makoto thing for him to do, and Sousuke is darkly amused by it. Once Rin has his control back, Makoto is tense again, like he hears a fork scraping a plate no one else can. He stoops and lifts Sousuke’s dumb useless body back up, and walks off the cliff into the tear in the world.</p>
<p>It takes them onto a black beach, a near photocopy of Iwatobi’s. It may be just that. But like the forest, it is also not quite anywhere. The sand is black, the water is black. It is the dead of night, again with no moon or stars.</p>
<p>Makoto speaks after a long stretch through soft sand. “...I am not going to consume him. I don’t plan to ascend.”</p>
<p>“Whatever. Of course you are. You all do. You’re dragging him with you for a snack. I just hope it doesn’t work.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>The disgust is open-faced in Rin’s response. “You have to actually give a shit about your familiar for it to work.”</p>
<p>Again, he pulls Sousuke’s body closer. The unreadable demon beneath his surface would be growling if it had a form. Sousuke would dare say it’s protective of him now; is that how Makoto brokered peace with it to stay in control?</p>
<p>“I do care about him.” It plants a nervous flutter in him, even saying it out loud to a person like Rin. A good flutter. A strong and confident flutter.</p>
<p>“Not enough to let your friend die.”</p>
<p>“Haru would never want me to do that for him.”</p>
<p>“Shut up already. You’re all liars.”</p>
<p>Makoto sighs and the wind drops out of his sails. Rin’s convictions are immune to talk.</p>
<p>“There, towards the torch.”</p>
<p>Up a hill leading away from the lapping black sea, there is a single torch burning a white-blue flame. It appears quickly constructed with dried out drift wood and, as Makoto approaches it, Sousuke confirms it.</p>
<p>“Follow them.”</p>
<p>Another torch burns just before it’s too far away to be perceived. Another follows that. And another. All in varying sizes and quality of construction. A haphazard pathway, as the lanterns in trees were before it, though those were more uniform and solid in construction.</p>
<p>The path carries them past the sand and up into rockier, denser terrain. Iwatobi if there weren’t any buildings there, perhaps. They ultimately lead to nowhere, and simply stop appearing in the middle of a field nondescript.</p>
<p>“Gou, I made it.”</p>
<p>Some twenty feet away, she steps out of another tear in the world, expecting to see Rin and getting eyeful of Makoto and his bloody bundle. She gasps, not at the sight of Sousuke, but Makoto. “What happened to you?”</p>
<p>Upon seeing her again for the first time in centuries, Makoto’s reaction is muddled and complicated as a consequence of allowing his demon room to negotiate. Opening the door for its participation is a two way street, and it is still quite untamed. Complicating matters is Sousuke’s personal immediate recognition and fondness of her causing friction with how Makoto really feels, planting in his subconscious a contradictory anxiety he can’t make sense of.</p>
<p><em>It’s her</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>She isn’t my enemy either.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ll kill her.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No I won’t.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ll tear her apart.</em>
</p>
<p>Makoto’s smooth deflections aren’t gaining traction and images of violence rippling through his thoughts unwanted are distressing him, unravelling the lulling effect of his calm inner narrative.</p>
<p>
  <em>No—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>YES</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>YES</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>YES</em>
</p>
<p>The hold Rin has over Makoto is, by both of their admissions, quite breakable. Makoto strains against it, pushing past himself to reach for Gou as he smothers his dissenting pleas beneath the fire of his ancient vengeful fury. The hard won symbiosis frays and clashes, its axis wobbling before imploding altogether and placing Makoto back on his lifelong struggle of defense against the aggressive entity pushing offense.</p>
<p>Seeing Makoto struggle, Rin doubles down on his hold, but the friction is too much for him. He’s mortal, after all, and Makoto is a strong vampire hosting a strong demon that wants out. The jarring discordant sensation of rough glass edges scratching together agitates an already sensitive Makoto. There is a shimmer in the immediate area that starts small, then stretches outward and shatters. When Makoto turns around, Rin stands defenseless clutching a hand to his center. His mirror has shattered into little needle-like slivers now littering the ground.</p>
<p>“I’ll kill him,” Rin reminds him.</p>
<p>There’s the flash boil again. Stronger than the grudge held against Gou. This is at the core of Makoto’s weakness and current strife, because it angers all facets of him. “How? It was never a real threat, Rin.” He holds Sousuke’s body out as a taunt. “Come and get him if you want to try it.”</p>
<p>The chilled edge of it clearly is not the Makoto he’s been dealing with. Rin doesn’t push his luck, but he doesn’t budge either. Satisfied Rin won’t try anything, Makoto turns back to Gou.</p>
<p>She cuts him off, whatever he planned to do. Sousuke can’t read him in this mind mess. “He’s okay.” Sousuke would exhale a held breath if he had a body. Some of the bloodlust and noise jamming Makoto’s sense stutters to a stop as she elaborates. “He’s with me. Haru is fine.”</p>
<p>“He’s fine,” Makoto imitates. It is numb in his mouth. Rin said it, but Makoto needed more than what Rin thought. Makoto was so aggrieved Sousuke didn’t realize how severely it had been seizing up his mind until the moment it drains away.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” she continues, “for what I did to you then. I know it hurt you. I’ll take you to him and prove it. Please don’t hurt us.”</p>
<p>She pleads with Makoto, but isn’t looking at the Makoto who never blamed her for anything and would tell her she has nothing to apologize for. Better than Rin, she sees what he is fighting with and trying to live with. Rin’s damaged and abrasive nature has Sousuke wondering if she doesn’t just understand, but has seen it before. Sees it all the time, in fact.</p>
<p>Turbulence abating. <em>Not the enemy.</em></p>
<p>All of Makoto nods, agreement inside and out. Placid now, and pulling Sousuke closer imperceptibly. What of the hold Sousuke can feel with his faint tether reassures him that Makoto is in control, even if he isn’t perfect at holding it steady. It’s intimate and earnest, a clear-headed touchstone through the current mess of his thoughts and feelings.</p>
<p>Rin shoves past Makoto unnecessarily, sensing the danger is passed or just colossally unbothered if it isn’t. He is muttering and lightly humiliated, but none the worse off. “Broke my fuckin’ mirror.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Makoto offers tepidly, though Rin is already gone through the tear.</p>
<p>Gou frowns now at the sight of Sousuke’s body. “Is he okay?”</p>
<p>At this Makoto’s shoulders fall. “I don’t know. Unresponsive. But alive.”</p>
<p>She hums. “I’m glad you’re both here.” And she turns to pass through the tear, with Makoto on her heels.</p>
<p>Through the tear, the land shifts again. This time Sousuke recognizes it and, when he does and yet he shouldn’t, it partially dislodges him from whatever is keeping him suspended in consciousness. Makoto notices something is off, wincing through a stab of headache and pausing his step until the consequential disorienting ring in his ears stops.</p>
<p>Gou turns to check on him, a few paces up the street. Rin is already out of sight. “We’re going to your old home.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s confusion is Sousuke’s confusion and he answers, forgetting his place in the fugue, and Makoto’s voice speaks it. “My what?”</p>
<p>“The block print business. It’s not burned down here.” She doesn’t comment on Makoto’s recoiling posture, nor what should be a strange question to her. Of course Makoto should recognize this place.</p>
<p>“I— right. Of course.”</p>
<p>The market street is strange to Sousuke because he never saw it not ablaze or tiled with the dead and dying. This is a replication, a movie set, of what it used to be. No one populates it, and the signs on the business are generic as if filled in with placeholder words. As they walk, Sousuke sees spots between structures that are conspicuously empty, buildings that cut off prematurely. It’s a pale facsimile of the busy place from Makoto’s memory. As Sousuke has come to expect, the path forward is adorned with lanterns and the space beyond is unfathomably black.</p>
<p>The front of the Night Sea, however, is picture perfect and unmistakable. Rendered in full detail and scope, triggering a cascade of synaptic firings long buried in deep nearly fossilized layers of Makoto’s memories. A choking grief tightens in his chest upon seeing it again. It pulls Makoto in with the promise of home, though Makoto knows it has not been his home for longer than it ever was, and moreover it can never be his home again. That era is long gone.</p>
<p>Gou leads on through the threshold. The retail space is stocked and orderly, with a wall of Haru’s best hanging and awaiting selection for print. Colorful and vivacious ponds, oceans, fish, countryside, fields, gardens, devious monsters and beasts, and what must be the back of Makoto looking out into nowhere, in one special case off to the upper left corner of the wall. All a showcase of what Haru would’ve prioritized, if the business allowed for it at the time. Seeing it twists Makoto up moreso than he already was.</p>
<p>Makoto lingers only briefly, finding it too heavy to contemplate when there are other priorities despite Sousuke’s curious focus that may be pulling on him to stay and look more. He ascends the stairs to the small living apartment he and Haru used to share, and here, finally, is Haru.</p>
<p>Sousuke wouldn’t blame Makoto if he dropped his body unceremoniously from his towering height onto the wooden floor to get to Haru, but Makoto is ever patient even when inside he is screaming. He crosses the room and approaches where Haru is sitting up against the wall looking worn out, but alert and intact. Respectfully, but urgently, Makoto sets Sousuke’s body down next to where he kneels to get face to face with Haru. Gou is already with Rin, speaking quietly with him on the other side of the room.</p>
<p>In a rare display, Haru smiles up at him to immediately assuage Makoto’s most acute and pressing fears. “I’m fine. Those corrupted are easy to kill when there isn’t sun slowing me down.”</p>
<p>Makoto fixes Haru’s hair where his fringe is disheveled and missing its natural part. “You didn’t look fine for a minute there.”</p>
<p>“Don’t fuss. I’ve had time to recover. I’m just tired now.” Haru cocks his head and studies Makoto’s face under the intense glow of his eyes, practically backlit aquarium enclosures in this dim room. “You’re... stronger.”</p>
<p>“I had to, to get to you.” Makoto’s eyes flit to Sousuke on his left. “I didn’t know I could do what you do. I can move through my reflection.”</p>
<p>“I’ve tried to tell you you can a million times.”</p>
<p>“I know.” He flashes an apologetic smile. “But something’s wrong.”</p>
<p>Haru sighs and sits up a little straighter, leaning forward to engage the conversation better. “You’re right. I warned him he was giving you too much.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” Makoto asks after a pause to reign in his worry before it carries into his tone.</p>
<p>Makoto inhales sharply through his nose when Haru darts an arm out and presses his index finger to the center of Makoto’s forehead. Sousuke flinches too in his immaterial form, and distantly registers this is also bad. He shouldn’t feel Makoto this intensely, down to sharing his reflexes. “I tried to tell you this, too. You refused to let me finish.”</p>
<p>Sheepish now. “...I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“You are bonded. He is your familiar. You share a soul link and you’re exploiting it beyond its purpose. And he’s right <em>here</em>.” Haru pushes his finger firmer to Makoto’s forehead, pushing him back a smidge. “You’re consuming his soul and he’s offering it up bit by bit. Energy vampirism.” He drops his hand. “I told you. I told him. And here you both are. No one listens to me.”</p>
<p>“That explains… some things. Something has been off with me.” The weight of the implication breaks over his back all at once. All those things he said that weren’t him, all those rogue thoughts. Sousuke is a fugitive staying out of the prowling searchlights of Makoto’s self-reflection. “How can I fix it?”</p>
<p>“You don’t know how. Because of the not listening thing. I’ll fix it. For now.” Haru looks to Sousuke’s body. “I’m sure one of you will immediately mess it up again, though. Eventually no one will be able to fix it and it’s the same as if you’d drained him dead. What a headache.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Voiceless, mostly exhale. “No matter what?”</p>
<p>“It’s already well past started. How would you go about putting Pandora back in its box?”</p>
<p>Blank. Nothing for Sousuke to read. Makoto is withholding, going off on deliberate thought tangents, to keep Sousuke off his trail now that he knows Sousuke is there. “...I see.”</p>
<p>“Let’s hope we break this curse soon somehow, because that’s the only way out now that I can see.” Without shaming Makoto further for his failing to address reality, Haru gets to work to sort things out.</p>
<p>“This place,” meaning this un-space they currently inhabit, “is where I go to skip around. It’s how we swim, I balance on the edge between and hold the bodies on one side and the minds on this side. In a nutshell.” Haru must sense Makoto’s anxiousness if he’s taking the time to explain what he does; Sousuke is used to Haru just doing mind bending nonsense without warning. “So since your bodies and minds are on this side now, I’ll reverse that then slam you back together here.”</p>
<p>Really seems above and beyond what a demon or vampire should be able to do. Is he supposed to know how to do that weird shit? “Are you supposed to know how to do that weird shit?”</p>
<p>An eavesdropping Rin snorts from across the room. Haru is torn between humor and horror. “Probably not, Sousuke. But I do, lucky for you.”</p>
<p>Makoto shudders and rolls his shoulders up and back. “I don’t like this. Please fix it. No offense, Sousuke.”</p>
<p>Sousuke would be more disturbed if Makoto had no problem with it, so his repulsion is preferable.</p>
<p>Here, Haru’s shadow when it stretches into action is an inverted white. As soon as it touches Makoto’s and Sousuke’s bodies, everything goes snowy and then blank. There’s nothing to see, only a nauseating lurch and churn. Approaching clumsy if Sousuke had confidence enough to critique it out loud; the reversal of what Haru does is something he’s making up as he goes and can’t be anything he’s practiced well.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, anywhere between five seconds and ten hours later, Sousuke opens his own two eyes to a blurry and plain wooden ceiling and what must be five thousand long nails hammered into his head, presumably re-securing the rogue parts of his soul to his body like a pelt nailed down over a drying board.</p>
<p>Going body-less for so long makes having limbs again a chore. They’re in the way and rather heavy. Independent of the sensation of lying beneath a weighted blanket is the obvious weakness that comes with losing a ton of blood in a short amount of time and receiving no treatment or remedy for it. A farout throwback to the morning afters of his university days.</p>
<p>The world rotates abruptly when Makoto pulls him up to sit by his shoulders, apparently impatient for his strength to return. It’s then Sousuke realizes Makoto does this because Sousuke’s forgotten how to breathe, as the jostling motion racks him with the coughing fits of lungs backfiring to full life.</p>
<p>“Are you all right?” Makoto.</p>
<p>The spinning room begins to level off as Sousuke finds his voice again. It’s craggly from disuse and thirst. He turns his head to catch Makoto in his periphery. “Yeah I think so. Tired.”</p>
<p>“Welcome back.” Haru is right where he left him, sitting in front of Makoto and perhaps paler than usual. Strange to see him so tapped out.</p>
<p>Either Makoto’s residual unexpressed and suppressed elation is still flooding Sousuke’s cerebral cortex or his own joy at seeing Haru in the flesh, from the cage of his own skeleton, after watching him combust is delayed yet equally overwhelming. A potent combination of both, likely, explains why Sousuke can’t think straight and lunges forward to bear hug Haru tight around the shoulders. Shocking still is, after the initial surprise, Haru pats him on the back in as close to returning it as he is likely to get.</p>
<p>Sousuke lets Haru out of it in part because the act of squeezing is still difficult. Makoto looks between them as a clueless outsider, not having been available to witness any of the surprisingly touching developments between them that would have explained all that better. He trusts it though; if Haru isn’t bothered then Makoto isn’t.</p>
<p>“That was half from Makoto, because literally none of you know how to express yourselves in a healthy way.” He turns his head to Rin and Gou, who still sit and quietly observe. “Seriously.”</p>
<p>Rin’s response is to throw another meal bar at Sousuke’s shoulder. “Make more blood. You sound like you’re still missing a lot.”</p>
<p>“Welcome back, Sousuke,” Gou offers last. “So now that we’re all here and where we’re supposed to be… we should plan.”</p>
<p>“I get where this place is,” Sousuke says, grasping easily enough that it’s a place between realms. “But I don’t get <em>how </em>this place is… like this.”</p>
<p>“I make it that way,” Gou answers like it’s easy. “This is sort of where we live when we’re forced to be near the, um, you call him Fisherman I suppose. There’s nothing here usually but that’s difficult for us. So we construct places from memory to make it a little easier to live in. There isn’t much sense or physical truths working here, we found out. It responds to will if you know how to wield it. They’re little islands of nothing connected only where they’re broken. We map it out with the lights you followed in, but it changes all the time. If, say, Haru uses it to travel, the ripple effect of that will move things around.”</p>
<p>Sousuke nods as he peels the wrapper back from Rin’s offered food. “Thanks, that doesn’t help at all.”</p>
<p>“All that matters about it is, we can use it, and this place is where the ship is. Well, on one of the islands.”</p>
<p>“How safe are we?” Makoto cuts through. “Right now. Rin said you were placed here by him. He knows where you are?”</p>
<p>This inquiry makes both siblings uncomfortable. They redden and look away, Rin looking embarrassed and Gou answering reluctantly. “He will separate us sometimes as punishment. We can’t move in and out like you guys. If he banishes one of us here, well. Use your imagination how he could use it and that’s what he does.”</p>
<p>Threats of eternity in nowhere, alone. What would happen to their souls? Does time pass normally? Can they starve? How long has Gou felt like she’s been here all alone? Long enough to make all those lanterns and torches on the off chance Rin found his way here and went looking for her. Sousuke thought about his own goodbyes without taking to heart what they said about their Captain’s cruelty. In retrospect, of course there would be consequences if they didn’t return with him that day.</p>
<p>It does well enough to take the residual hard edge out of Makoto’s gaze. As Sousuke assumed, once he had a chance to hear them out, he wouldn’t be able to stay angry with them. It’s too much a continuation of his own experience. That and holding a grudge is not something Makoto does.</p>
<p>Sensing no one actually wants to answer that out loud, Gou continues. “I found where Haru landed by finding my way towards the displacement it caused. He helped me build this while we waited for his recovery and for you. Gave us something to focus on, which helps make waiting for the unknown not so bad.”</p>
<p>“I think I did a good job,” Haru adds. “I remembered more than I thought I would.”</p>
<p>Makoto agrees. “I’d say so. I like the changes you made. It’s how the store always should’ve looked.”</p>
<p>“To answer your question, we’re not safe. When Haru isn’t delivered and his hunters don’t return he will come for me and Rin.” She takes on a grim expression. “There’s no going back from how this played out. For us, anyway. ”</p>
<p>“So we’ll go to him first,” Sousuke suggests. “Not sit around and wait for him to surprise us.”</p>
<p>“Bingo,” Rin agrees.</p>
<p>“That’s reckless,” Makoto and Gou jinx.</p>
<p>All eyes immediately fall on Haru, a de facto tiebreaker who is best equipped and experienced to help carry out any plan they do commit to. He shifts in his seat and looks like he wishes he were a chameleon. Ultimately, he stalls.</p>
<p>“I don’t even understand where the Fisherman is, exactly.”</p>
<p>Rin settles back against the wall and crosses his ankles. “It wouldn’t have helped to explain it until you saw this place. He’s stuck on his ship, which he keeps somewhere in this inbetween. He can’t leave. He is part of the ship, and the First Mate is also his prisoner, in a way. If he leaves, the illusion breaks. He’s no shortage of hunters thrown into this abyss over the centuries, corrupted, hungry, and ready to act for him though.”</p>
<p>Haru carries the line of questioning, a peculiar role for him. “The illusion of what?”</p>
<p>“Holding the First Mate.” Rin raises an eyebrow. “You’re looking at me like you’re not one of his underlings specifically.”</p>
<p>“I am. He made me. But he was just as bad. So what do you mean by prisoner? He was always, well… the First Mate. No less ruthless.”</p>
<p>“You really haven’t been around for a long time.” Rin heaves a long and audible sigh. Speaking with Haru directly is making him snippy, but he’s keeping it civil. “First Mate wanted out. Cap wanted him in. Cap holds him in. Cap moves the whole fuckin’ ship to nowhere to keep him in. That help?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know about help, but it isn’t unbelievable.” Haru drops his eyes and scans the floor, the knuckle of his index finger pushing at the curve of his upper lip in thought. Makoto is more disturbed by the development, shrinking into himself and feeling something dark and heavy over it that Sousuke can’t parse now that he’s not in his head. What about it has Makoto so upended is something to look into if they get a moment, dismal as those chances now seem.</p>
<p>Haru makes his decision. “Given none of us are at our best, it would be better if we didn’t have to waste energy killing more hunters before we deal with him. I don’t know the extent to what he’s capable of anymore and I assume you two don’t either.”</p>
<p>“No,” Gou confirms. “He keeps us and everything else off the ship. We never see him or the First Mate, only carry out his orders as he dictates at a distance if he summons us. We live here or in motels in the mortal world on standby.”</p>
<p>“Then take us to the ship. There’s nothing to gain by waiting.” He looks to Makoto. “Are you ready?”</p>
<p>It’s more a question everyone should be asking Haru, who is still recovering and yet will be responsible for any mass-moving they do. He must be asking Makoto something else. Is a cooler-headed Makoto in control? Will he <em>stay </em>that way? Does he understand he might have to kill? Does he know they have three mortals to keep alive in addition to themselves, and that’s a tall order? The last question is more Sousuke’s revelation.</p>
<p>Makoto is firm in face and tone. “I won’t let anyone down again.”</p>
<p>“Great news for me who has nearly died twice in one day because of you,” Rin clips. Justified, perhaps, but always so grating.</p>
<p>“We have to wait for a ripple,” Gou redirects before Haru’s eyes can fully narrow on Rin. “Then we can follow it. The ship makes big ripples. We’ll know.”</p>
<p>“And from there?” Makoto presses, visibly uncomfortable with the sense of unknowing coming with this plan.</p>
<p>“Think on our feet,” Rin answers. He stabs a thumb back towards his chest. “You got two of the best at that with you. We’ve stayed alive this long. Now we have some vamps on our side for once, however long that’ll last.”</p>
<p>Gou gestures behind Sousuke and Makoto. “Rest until we can move. You need it, all three of you.”</p>
<p>There is a pile of bedding behind them. Sousuke can’t remember if it was there when they got there, or if Gou just made it be. Adjusting to another dimension is a process.</p>
<p>Even Makoto and Haru have limits they will admit to, apparently, and don’t protest the request. They’re not fessing up to being as worn out as they are either; Sousuke can see the buried extent of it in the hunch and drag of Haru’s shoulders and Makoto’s mental exhaustion registers as the highest note playable on the rim of a crystal glass bowl lodged somewhere between Sousuke’s ears. They briefly exchange glances too, worrying ones if Sousuke considers himself casually fluent in their silent communications at this point. The responsibility they are taking on must be paralyzing. Agreeing to rest when they are not capable of normal sleep says they’ll take any repose they can get.</p>
<p>The distance they all keep from each other is not lost on Sousuke either. Trusting Rin and Gou beyond this point will be tough for them. Similarly, Rin and Gou don’t trust anyone but themselves. Sousuke has the least experience with any of this. No tricks, no hellish power. Just himself and less of that than when he started, at that. It’s enough to discourage him if he lets it get under his skin and make him feel weak. He can’t.</p>
<p>He has something none of the four of them do, though: overzealous faith in his friends and the benefit of being an outsider to their depressing multi-century myopia. Plain on their faces as they retreat to their corners is a despondent finality. Grimness. Sousuke is the only one among them still naive enough to believe the four of them can get out alive, even if his chances were never as good. He will need that faith if he’s going to be useful to them. As for himself, maybe he’ll get lucky.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. you give love a bad name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>here is aaaaaall of the rest + an epilogue. ty for reading and see you later space cowboy</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s quiet, at first. A murmur Sousuke absorbs into a twilight state that doesn’t wake him all the way, but alerts him to its presence. Then it spikes, one little note. Anger. Shushing follows. But the damage is done and Sousuke’s eyes snap open, too on edge to write off anything so nakedly aggressive.</p>
<p>He turns his head slowly, and meets Makoto’s green glow. It is not Makoto who’s angry. Makoto holds a finger to his lips instructing Sousuke to be silent.</p>
<p>The rising tide of the conversation is carrying up from downstairs. No amount of shushing is helping to slow the boil.</p>
<p>“—don’t <em>remember?!</em>” Whispery-hissing-yelling sort of pitch. Rin.</p>
<p>Haru’s low rumble responds.</p>
<p>Sousuke gingerly rolls over to prevent any creaks and finds a gap in the floor to lay his ear over.</p>
<p>“He was nothing to you but he was everything to us.” Gou.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Haru says. “I really am. But you didn’t have to sicc all those feeders on me.”</p>
<p>“Fuck this,” Rin replies. “You just get away with it over and over and you don’t even remember who he was. You’re heartless, you’re careless.”</p>
<p>Haru doesn’t refute it or defend himself. Makoto has taken to a quiet sigh and the self-soothing motion of drawing circles into Sousuke’s back. What an impossibly difficult conversation. No oxygen for Rin’s fire either if Haru doesn’t even remember turning their father. No satisfying resolution there.</p>
<p>“I’ve tried to atone—”</p>
<p>“Don’t give me that shit.”</p>
<p>“What do you want me to do?” He’s strained and distraught. Sousuke understands by the pressure building into the fingertip circling around his back that Makoto wishes he could go to Haru’s defense, but he restrains himself. It’s not his fight. He knows Makoto is lost in thinking about all the families he split up too, as Rin and Gou are the impossible ghosts from the past here to remind them those actions back then still matter, in some ways. Sousuke has a better appreciation for why Makoto confessed his past to him so early on. “Honestly. What can I do to make it better?”</p>
<p>Gou is less abrasive, in that she sees no way through to a satisfying conclusion the soonest. “We just wish you had remembered him. There’s nothing to be done about it. We have to get along now.”</p>
<p>“Until he leaves us to die or better yet, kills us himself. Need a little <em>oomph</em> to fight your battles, right?”</p>
<p>“I won’t do that,” Haru insists. “I promise.”</p>
<p>“For all the good that is. You’ll fuckin’ <em>forget</em>.”</p>
<p>It’s obvious when the ship finally does move, cutting short Haru’s moral reckoning. They all feel it, an invisible and invasive shudder that passes right through them. It puts a prickle all over Sousuke’s skin and leaves him momentarily nauseous as if he’s spent a morning rocking along a choppy sea.</p>
<p>Rin’s shift into business is instantaneous, startling Sousuke and Makoto apart before Sousuke registers Rin made his way upstairs to retrieve them. “Time to move.”</p>
<p>He stands and is woozy, but it’ll have to be good enough. A slow burning ache has worked its way into the muscles of his neck and shoulder around where Makoto bit him, muscles having tensed up in protest to the attack now inflamed. A good reminder Makoto is not powerless going into this and, worst case scenario, has a back up battery in the form of his familiar.</p>
<p>They leave the Night Sea and step into the deserted, recreated street. Makoto and Haru pass one final look at their home and take what they need from seeing it again before Haru deliberately razes it with his pitch. Silently and ruthlessly, it folds into itself until it disappears altogether. They say nothing about it.</p>
<p>“Towards the ripple?” Haru double checks.</p>
<p>Gou nods the affirmative, and Haru sweeps them forward.</p>
<p>The only moments Sousuke registers are the breaks between skips. Haru maintains an iron grip over all of them, perhaps too strong, to keep everyone in line as he moves them. That or he would have to expend the energy to individualize his leashing approach, and Sousuke assumes that would be more wasteful. The result of moving so fast and being jostled so hard into Haru’s idea of proper form is a veritable blacking out as he does it. The breaks in skips aren’t for him or Makoto, but for the mortals, who release from their un-space confinements on jellied limbs, out of breath and disoriented.</p>
<p>The ripples are intermittent for some time. Haru finely attunes their direction to each shift, but on occasion they stop and wait altogether for another round to make sure. This is fine for the three weak links whose tender, functional organs don’t enjoy dimensional compression and decompression. As they get closer, the ripples are closer together. The breaks are shorter as Haru either grows impatient or tunnel visioned towards the goal.</p>
<p>Just at the brink when Sousuke can’t take another leap without materializing on the other side inside out, Haru and the ripples stop. Sousuke, Gou, and Rin crash into the ashy black sand of the island fragment they’ve landed on in miserable, curled up lumps. For once, Sousuke’s glad there’s next to nothing in his stomach, keeping his involuntary heaving dry at least.</p>
<p>A familiar hand soothes him at the center of his back until his insides stop lava lamping around, and Makoto helps him stand. Gou takes Haru’s hand up until her knees remember how to lock out, and Rin bats Haru’s subsequent help away to his own follied stumble.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Haru apologizes. “This is a lot of mortals for one demon’s mouth. Needed to get us through while it was... manageable.”</p>
<p>Sousuke assumed Haru’s control was a foregone conclusion. Even he is fallible, with enough temptation and stress to push it. The thought of having the blood ripped out of his body through his skin skips nauseating him and goes straight to inducing a patchy light headedness. Just a dumb fucking fish, twisted out like a towel until he’s sheet white, floating backwards into the nothing of Haru’s pitch.</p>
<p>Lowly, “Sousuke.”</p>
<p>A harsh snap back to the group. Fuck. Woozy. Discreet, Makoto drops his hand from the upper center of his back to firmer middle to counterbalance what would’ve been an obvious topple. Haru, Gou, and Rin are faced out and taking in the sight of a giant corpse of an old ship in the distance that would leave Sousuke speechless if he weren’t preoccupied with staving off a heart attack.</p>
<p>“I’m good.” It’s a reflexive lie. He’s not good. Makoto would know that.</p>
<p>“Haru knows his limits better than anyone. He’s just being safe.”</p>
<p>A gentle way of reminding Sousuke he isn’t in danger, not with them. It’s patronizing in a sense after everything he’s been through but admittedly, Sousuke can’t think of what Makoto could say otherwise that wouldn’t sound patronizing. In response to something as soul-bearing as Sousuke losing another one of the stitches keeping him together in front of the single person he needs to appear put together for, any attention paid to it feels lousy.</p>
<p>“I know. Stop worrying.”</p>
<p>Makoto sighs, unconvinced, but Haru interrupts their already porous privacy. “It’s safer to walk from here. I don’t know if announcing ourselves to pinpoint accuracy with my moving us closer is wise just yet.”</p>
<p>“I agree.” Makoto surveys the group. “The Fisherman is our common goal. Let’s work together.”</p>
<p>He is not a bombastic team leader type, or particularly bloodthirsty for victory. The frail edges of his words are more concerned with keeping everyone on the same team and yet understanding it might not be that simple.</p>
<p>“It won’t take long for word to get to him that we’re coming,” Rin says. He swings his backpack around to dig into the seemingly bottomless main compartment. Gou does the same. “So don’t stop or try and run ‘cuz it won’t save you.”</p>
<p>He tosses Sousuke an object that he reflexively catches before he registers what it is. Sturdy and dense. A whittled wooden stake, shaped with a handle for wielding. It puts Rin down to one for himself while Gou reveals two.</p>
<p>
  <em>—thick, tarry blood runs down the shaft of the branch in gobs, coating Sousuke’s hand, arm, and chest—</em>
</p>
<p>“Know what to do with it?”</p>
<p>“Uh… yeah.” He stuffs it in his inner jacket pocket. To throw Makoto off his panicky scent he adds: “Work at a restaurant. Lotta… knives.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Okay. Anyway. Good luck.” Rin is the first to break and begin the walk towards the looming, rotted ship.</p>
<p>Haru wrinkles his nose in disgust at the stake in Sousuke’s grasp. “Put me down with some dignity if it comes to it. None of <em>that</em>.”</p>
<p>“Hold you face down in a bucket of holy water?”</p>
<p>Haru nods. “Better, thank you.”</p>
<p>How quickly Makoto’s attempt to rally everyone dissolves. He is relieved to not be put upon for further morale boosting in any case. Gou follows Rin, Haru follows Gou, and Sousuke waits for Makoto to move and keeps pace with him once he does.</p>
<p>The longer they walk, and the longer nothing horrible happens, the more Sousuke can take in the truly remarkable place he’s stumbled into. Humans have a knack for shutting down and rolling with the punches when too much is going on all at once, but there is helpful anchoring in pausing to look around, too. It is night in that there is an absence of light, as it was on the other broken islands they flit through. A day cycle can’t exist if they’re not literally on Earth, but there are stars or something like them. On top of the black sand sits a thin layer of water, just enough to make the trek a bit of a chilly slosh, and more than enough to reflect the stars above and make the flat expanse ahead appear as a tunnel. On the air is salt and metal, acrid on his tongue and abrasive on his face.</p>
<p>The rotting ship itself is cut into voided relief more than it is a three-dimensional object. It is dark even against the pitch black landscape. Only the light from above and reflected below offers any shape to the space or a sense of direction. If it weren’t for the ship as a visual target, they would be wandering in circles without realizing it, for even their footprints backfill with the viscous black sand as if they were never made within seconds.</p>
<p>No one is speaking, all with heads on a swivel and ready to respond to whatever happens. The ship never gets any closer, until it suddenly leaps forward. That or Sousuke isn’t as anchored as he thought he was. But a jolt from Makoto in the pit of his gut reflects the same level of surprise when it happens. The stars overhead shimmer over the wobble of an outgoing wave, the ground ripples out as a concentrated earthquake and nearly trips them all.</p>
<p>“The whole ship is moving the same way Haru moves us,” Makoto observes dispassionately. And Haru, their strongest and most capable, can only move a few bodies in short spurts.</p>
<p>Soon after the first jump, the ship jumps again. This time it’s stronger, knocking them all into the sludge. The jump brings something else with it as well, something Sousuke doesn’t understand until Rin calls it out.</p>
<p>“Wave!”</p>
<p>Water. It’s a flood of surging water. The force of it alone would knock them unconscious. If it’s as cold as what soaks their feet, it will surely kill those of them who can die. There are only seconds to make a decision, and with Haru farther ahead and no time to coordinate or plan, when Haru stretches his shadow back to grab Makoto and Sousuke, he does so on shaky ground. When Haru pulls Sousuke to the middle, he’s mentally off-balance. His snapping maw lashes out with a murderous thrash, the same bloodthirsty gestalt from the night they met. A far cry from the gentle hold it uses to move them.</p>
<p>Whether or not Haru can get it under control and integrate Sousuke properly to move him safely, Sousuke never finds out. The threat of harm sends him into a terror-laden tailspin, every atom resists Haru’s pull and plants itself deep, deep down on the line between the unspace they came from and the subspace Haru needs to get to. In the ocean all those weeks ago, Sousuke rejected the very idea of surrendering his mind to Haru when Haru demonstrated his hunt. Sousuke nearly tore himself out of the subspace. Makoto secured him then. Makoto secures him when it happens again now, but Makoto is no better integrated himself.</p>
<p>The tug of war between demonic consciousnesses is immediately violent and unnatural. There is a sickening crunch, then reverberating snap, the force and feel of a crypt full of bones breaking all at the same time. The break pains Haru, whose distressed roar weaves with a glass-shattering screech echoing upwards from deep down in tones no human voice box can make. The next instance, Haru is gone, along with Rin and Gou, and Sousuke and Makoto are stranded in nowhere.</p>
<p>Carefully, they move. They fall up. Slow at first, then whip quick. From hundreds of thousands of angles, Makoto’s demon reflects outward, infinitely. Thoughts pass in reverse, unintelligible. Looking up is down, left is right. Then, the outline of the ship breaks the wall of reflections. It is inverted, all light and pure white. <em>Here</em>, Makoto is telling him. Or someone else. Or them. The forward momentum of the word running up against the backwards momentum un-inverts the universe.</p>
<p>Hard ground pushes up against the soles of Sousuke’s half boots. The taste of salt and metal re-saturates his tongue. It is musty and damp, stinking of mildew and boggy ferment. Makoto shakes him by his shoulders until the many de-synced splices of him re-sync into one mind, body, and soul.</p>
<p>Shimmering, glitchy panels dissolve in patches all around. Sousuke blinks focus back into his eyes and searches for his voice for a delayed moment. “...I don’t like how you move.”</p>
<p>“Me either.” Makoto grimaces. “That was rough. Needs work. Haru makes it seem so easy.” What happened just prior to all that sinks in, stretching Makoto’s pinched grimace into wide shock. “Haru. Oh no.”</p>
<p>“Did he… drop us?”</p>
<p>“He had to. It wasn’t stable.” His face sets stern. “Why did you resist him?”</p>
<p>Sousuke thinks back for a reason that makes sense and re-discovers only terror. “I thought he was going to… it just seemed like it would eat me. I panicked.”</p>
<p>It wounds Makoto as if Sousuke were speaking about him. “You know he wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>But he felt Haru might, right? Sousuke saw what he saw, didn’t he? Or was Haru just reaching for him as usual?</p>
<p>Sousuke doesn’t know.</p>
<p>Maybe this is what Rin meant when he warned him to keep a bell on his own monster. He could’ve known better if he knew what was real and what wasn’t when things got stressful. Instead of keeping up with everyone by sloughing his little fractures off to the next checkpoint to deal with he could’ve worked something else out with Haru beforehand.</p>
<p>“I fucked up. I got freaked out. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Makoto walks his tone back, picking up on Sousuke’s frustration and addlement. “It’s all right. I’m just glad I was able to fix it.” He looks around to determine where they’ve ended up. “I just hope Haru is nearby, with Rin and Gou, and they found somewhere safe. We had the same destination in mind, anyway. He shouldn’t have landed too far.”</p>
<p>They’re in some sort of dark, contained space. The hold of the ship, if a not nautically inclined Sousuke had to guess, given there is literally nowhere else on this plane that could look like this. There are supply crates that are deteriorating into dust stacked and toppled interchangeably all around. The supplies here are not used and haven’t been touched since, well, probably Makoto’s time on the vessel.</p>
<p>The ground has that same thin layer of miserably cold water that sits over the black sands beyond. The only light is the strange and sourceless dimness from the outside, beaming in through the extremely structurally compromised layers of wooden slats.</p>
<p>“This is it, huh? Where you started.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s next exhale is tight and stunted. “It is, isn’t it? The smell is the same.”</p>
<p>“Are you all right?”</p>
<p>“It’s just strange. Like a dream.” He turns out and looks over the mess in the hold. “He must know we’re here. Why are we still alone?”</p>
<p>If Makoto thinks that, then the opposite must be true as well. “Do you feel him?”</p>
<p>Sousuke can’t see his expression with him turned away, and his tone is measured and flat. “Always.”</p>
<p>“Let’s fix that.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s demeanor shifts. He stands taller, squarer. He’s denser too. There is an altered presence to him that Sousuke can sense hovering just over his skin, the kind of presence strong enough to, say, string Sousuke or Rin up by their necks. “Promise me you’ll stay out of it,” he says. “Whatever happens. Whatever you think you see.”</p>
<p>“I can’t promise that. But I’ll try.”</p>
<p>Still with his back to Sousuke, Makoto’s darker inclination speaks: “I could still demand you stay here.”</p>
<p>“But you won’t.”</p>
<p>“It’s dangerous.”</p>
<p>And Sousuke knows <em>all </em>of Makoto is on his side now, so he challenges it and makes a last-ditch pitch: “Yeah? And you could turn me, so I’m not so fragile, but you won’t. You’re stubborn in how you want me to be here.”</p>
<p>Calculated now, even and neutral. Verbally withholding the gathering storm clouds of hatred Sousuke senses in him. “The Fisherman loved his First Mate so much he turned him, you know. So they wouldn’t ever be apart. And ultimately he imprisoned him in this illusion to maintain that eternity. Do you want that for you? For us?”</p>
<p>It deeply angers him. The situation and that Sousuke would still ask for it knowing what he knows now. Sousuke didn’t recognize this reaction when Rin first explained the situation and triggered it in Makoto, even with the benefit of their curse, as the intensity and ferocity of that hatred and anger is so foreign to what Sousuke has come to define as Makoto’s limits for those dark feelings. That assumption was foolishly incorrect; Makoto’s expanding capacity for fury in this moment would level a city.</p>
<p>Makoto wouldn’t imprison him to force them to stay together, Sousuke is confident to believe, but Makoto does not like that Sousuke would be willing to entertain the possibility or suggest that is an equally valid way to stay together.</p>
<p>“...No.”</p>
<p>“Don’t ask me to turn you again.”</p>
<p>Sousuke forgets how to breathe again when Makoto reveals he can do much more with what Sousuke gave him than he let on. Suddenly Sousuke is making eye contact with Makoto through his reflection, where he has conjured a full-length, oval-shaped mirror directly in front of himself. From here, his reflection contorts and morphs until it is no longer physically Makoto, only the contained passenger Sousuke spent some time with, the one Sousuke saw imprisoned in the reflection on the creek that evades any shape for too long. It’s free. Unobstructed.</p>
<p>Makoto walks into it and Sousuke follows him. On the other side, the interior of the ship is inverted in value. Harshly white in contrast to the depthless blacks. Makoto walks with purpose, heavy and quick and confident. They cross the hold. They climb the steps leading up through an open square in the next level. The wood shouldn’t hold their weight in the state it is in, but Makoto has some dominion over it, too.</p>
<p>On the next level, huddles of hunters. Hundreds of them. Covering the ground in mobius lumps of faces and masks. Sousuke is stiff to move only briefly, as Makoto walks through them as if they aren’t there. He is an apparition. They sense nothing despite their subconscious parting around Makoto as he crosses the otherwise desolate level, where perhaps, based on the weathered and sloppy boardings dotting the walls, cannons and guns used to sit. Makoto’s manipulative reach is far and vast now, tethered to every corrupted mind on this deck and convincing them they see nothing.</p>
<p>Smack in the middle of crossing the writhing mass, Makoto stops abruptly. Words speak in their heads, in their own voices, and inform them their hidden respite is over.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Welcome home, Makoto.”</em>
</p>
<p>Instantly, the hold Makoto has over the area breaks with no resistance, a thin eggshell beneath a hammer. From Makoto, into Sousuke, stabs an initial spike of alarm, but Makoto quickly contains it and locks himself down. He needs to, because hundreds of hunters are all instantly aware of the imposition in their midst, and panic is no use.</p>
<p>Sousuke braces for a bloody, protracted fight that never comes to pass.</p>
<p>“Sousuke… I think you would be wise to close your eyes.”</p>
<p>The dual burr grinders that came once for Sousuke now churn out and fork in fractals in a large spiral away from him and Makoto at the center. In less than a second, every arm and branch is poised for carnage. Never ending bloodshed.</p>
<p>Sousuke does as Makoto suggests.</p>
<p>The hunters’ overwhelming presence suffocates them one moment and disappears the next. Sousuke doesn’t have to see it to know what happens. It is wet all over his skin and clothes, thick in his nose, shattering in his ears. He remembers the hot and viscous molasses pouring out of the hole a branch made through another hunter’s chest, he remembers the nauseating sulfuric fumes that waft off the corrupted as their remains disintegrate into ash, he remembers the inhuman screeches and wails when they chatter and when they die and everything in between. Makoto is correct. Sousuke has seen enough of it for one mortal’s lifetime.</p>
<p>“Let’s keep going.”</p>
<p>Sousuke keeps his eye level up above the mess at their feet and focuses on the back of Makoto’s head. Already the evidence of the massacre dries on his skin, and begins to dissolve away. His throat is so tight the tension pushes up to his eyes, threatening tears. Not his tears. He is hollow and his thoughts pass through him without any value or weight. It’s Makoto collapsing from the inside, his not-so unshakeable pillars of grace crumbling into the faults splitting through his spirit. Sousuke doesn’t need to ask why. The corrupted were people once.</p>
<p>
  <em>“You’re strong.”</em>
</p>
<p>A shiver shoots down Sousuke’s back, a tuning fork’s tight and unsettling vibration on either side of his spine.</p>
<p>“Don’t listen to him,” Makoto says as they approach the stairs up to the ship’s deck.</p>
<p>
  <em>“You’re ruthless.”</em>
</p>
<p>“Hard not to.”</p>
<p>“Don’t believe what he tells you. Don’t believe what you see.”</p>
<p>They ascend. Sousuke‘s pulse quickens, the closed square hatch door ahead a final and sudden stop. “...I don’t know how to obey that.”</p>
<p>“You have to.” A pause at the top of the stairs, then softer but hurried, “I swear I’ll protect you. You know who I am. Please don’t forget.”</p>
<p>Makoto throws the hatch open before Sousuke can assure him that can never happen.</p>
<p>They emerge into the covered forecastle and step out into the open through the entryway. The top deck is eerily empty. The blanket of stars above dominating this fragment of unspace do little to demystify the ship’s more intricate details and darkest corners. They’re alone up here too, though. No Haru. No siblings.</p>
<p>Straight ahead are the Captain’s quarters, nestled beneath the raised navigational deck and past the snapped and splintered mainmast. Compared to the state of the rest of the ship, this fixture stands out, remarkably pristine. The wood is lacquered and cared after, the decorative inlays framing the ornate and heavy door perfectly intact. From its mirrored windows on either side of the door boasts a strange sight in this place: the warm and gentle glow of candlelight.</p>
<p>Makoto opens the door, no hesitation found even in the depths of his heart when he does it.</p>
<p>The quarters are breathtaking, fully furnished and gilded. Burgundies, navys, emeralds, and metallics. That tacky, costumey richness blankets every inch of it from rug to curtain. The decor and palette and patterned upholsteries and fabrics and metals are so ostentatious and loud the space transcends wealth and is a parody unto itself.</p>
<p>Yet what truly draws Sousuke in is directly in front of them on a long table set with etched silver dishes and cutlery. A banquet. The display of neatly arranged food is overabundant, ripe, and vibrant. Meats, cheeses, and fruits arranged artfully on a number of boards and boules and baguettes of crusty breads in rustic baskets. Bottles of wines and spirits of all shades and origin dot the tabletop like a warlord’s map markers.</p>
<p>Sousuke is transfixed. And ravenous.</p>
<p>“Eat.”</p>
<p>At the head of the table sits Makoto, gesturing out over the feast.</p>
<p>“You’ve earned it.”</p>
<p>It’s Makoto’s simple smile, his disheveled charisma and charm, but missing is his unwarranted and ever-present remorse. When it isn’t there, it’s more obvious than when it is present; the struggle lacing each sentence he speaks, always apologetic for taking up space. This Makoto is pleased to be the center of attention.</p>
<p>“Fuck off.”</p>
<p>He chuckles, quick to drop the illusion of Makoto’s voice. In reality he’s old and hoarse, true voice a grotesque rattle ripping from where Sousuke expects Makoto’s lighter lilt. “To the point. So am I.”</p>
<p>Pain explodes up and out from his side, where his flank was injured days prior just to make it interesting, but his kidney is the true target. While he is distracted yowling over that, a swift jolt to the back of his knee breaks the lockout in his legs and easily drops him down to the floor. To keep him there, a hand holds his head up by his chin and a sharp edge presses to the side of his throat. There are only two people in Sousuke’s life currently who would threaten him with a knife on behalf of an undead tyrant, and one of them is not tall enough to tower over him as they do now.</p>
<p>“Really, Rin? I really thought we were past it.”</p>
<p>“I have to.” Surprising Sousuke, it lacks it’s gruff edge. It’s soft and miserable. There is the faintest tremble on the knife’s blade, perceptible only because the edge is dug so deep into Sousuke’s skin. If Rin so much as twitches, it will cut him.</p>
<p>Opulence falls away, all a mirage. It may have looked like that once, but everything now is as tarnished and corroded as the rest of the ship. The quarters are still lit by candlelight, in sconces lining the wall at measured intervals. There is a lit candelabra at the graying, worn table where the feast just was, but little else.</p>
<p>The Fisherman sits here too, an old and twisted man made up of the same decay as his ship. He is ancient, sunken into his own hard and wooden skin, unable to ambulate. He’s an old man in form, but he is also something else. His face is twisted and pulled in unnatural angles, like skin rotting away from its bone. A corpse, a memory of what he used to be.</p>
<p>They kept saying it, but Sousuke actually understands it now: the Fisherman can’t leave his quarters. He always sends hunters for his fights. He keeps Rin and Gou as his hostages for sane eyes on the field. He’s falling apart. Literally. To save himself he has grown into his ship, as rooted as an old tree and fossilized through to preserve his shape.</p>
<p>The room is beglittered with illusory dreck. It’s impossible to tell what is manipulated and what isn’t. The very space is its own dimension, this deeply controlled. “It was not easy to get everyone here,” the Fisherman says, “all while adjusting for the ideas of my ever treasonous assistants. But here we all are.”</p>
<p>He’s speaking to the room, not Sousuke directly. Sousuke can’t move his head around to determine where Makoto is, much less Haru or Gou. If Makoto is experiencing strong feelings, Sousuke is unable to tap in. It’s a lonely, emptying sensation now that it’s gone. Painful, even. His own thoughts and feelings are duller without Makoto’s presence in his soul amplifying their interactions, inspiring his honesty. A blade at his throat is a nuisance at best comparatively.</p>
<p>“Where’s Makoto?”</p>
<p>The Fisherman’s voice localizes on Sousuke. “You are only alive because I realized after trying to kill you and witnessing why you didn’t die, that I would need unforced cooperation to get what I want.”</p>
<p>Witnessing? Makoto left no hunter alive before Haru showed up that night. But Rin’s stiffening grip quickly answers that. He was there, too. Of course he was. If they live, the two of them are really going to have to work through some trust building exercises after this.</p>
<p>A shimmer passes over the table, revealing more. Gou sits prim and upright to the Fisherman’s right, as if she’s waiting politely to be served. She stares forward, vacant. A noise escapes Rin, low and weak. That’s one strike against Sousuke’s life; she’s being leveraged.</p>
<p>To the Fisherman’s left sits Haru, just as offline as Gou appears to be. In front of him, a single golden goblet.</p>
<p>Sousuke pushes his luck. Someone like this should be self-centered enough to talk to anyone. “And what do you want?”</p>
<p>“Full ascension, what I’m owed. These bodies have failed us. Our kin has betrayed us. I can finally remedy both of these problems.”</p>
<p>Part of the decor leaps out at Sousuke as he explains. The room is shifting again, revealing more. And there is Makoto standing behind his rooted nightmare like some sort of servant. He is not under any sort of illusion as Gou and Haru are. He is very aware and very avoiding looking at Sousuke. Surely as soon as he saw Haru and the others weren’t safe, he surrendered himself over without complaint.</p>
<p>“Makoto,” slips Sousuke, searching for anything, any ally in a situation where it is dawning on him that he is truly alone. His heartbeat quickens, stirred by the bubbling his calling Makoto’s name invokes in Makoto’s chest, though Makoto is trying as hard as he can to contain himself. Why?</p>
<p>“Oh, Makoto, no sense in trying to hide it,” the Fisherman says. “You belong to me, I feel you as much as the mortal does.”</p>
<p>“Hey fuck you,” Sousuke snaps, both in response to the diminutive use of <em>mortal</em> and his casually stated ownership over other people.</p>
<p>A stifling pressure settles over Sousuke. “I want this to be over,” the Fisherman says. “No more wasting time. Makoto, consume him.”</p>
<p>Ah. That is not what Sousuke expected. Fisherman was not supposed to want that to happen, given it would make Makoto very strong and Makoto would like to kill him. Seems counterproductive.</p>
<p>Makoto still won’t look at him. “I can’t.”</p>
<p>Over the course of this exchange, Rin has taken the edge of his blade away from Sousuke’s neck. Whether that be because his arm is getting tired or he too senses something is amiss, Sousuke is not at liberty to ask.</p>
<p>The Fisherman sighs. “You can, you just won’t. Haruka, drink.”</p>
<p>Haru reaches for the goblet as Makoto shouts, “<em>No!</em>”</p>
<p>Sousuke tenses but his horror is never fully realized. Haru doesn’t drink whatever it is, pausing mid-rise to his lips. There is no accompanying wildfire of anguish with Makoto’s plea as Sousuke would expect to feel from him were the situation as it appeared to be, leaving his concern heightened but not over the edge. Makoto is nervous, but it is a slow-burning anxiety, mismatching his feverish outburst. For Makoto, vaguely nervous is essentially his calm.</p>
<p>Something is up.</p>
<p>“You want me stronger?” Makoto questions. “What makes you think you could take our bodies if I do this? You underestimate the bond you’re exploiting.”</p>
<p>Sousuke flinches ever so slightly and can’t pin why. It’s not right. Makoto doesn’t speak like that. His <em>demon </em>doesn’t speak like that.</p>
<p>It doesn’t stall the Fisherman in any case. “Consume him now, or the next time I tell him to drink, he will.”</p>
<p>“You won’t do it,” Makoto laughs. “You need Haru’s body too, right? I know you’re hiding the First Mate here.”</p>
<p>That strikes a nerve. The ship creaks, as if it’s breaking over a wave. Makoto’s surprise is palpable, as is his dismay, again in stark contrast to his smug delivery. The whole room shakes, dust and flakes dislodging from its surfaces and crevices.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t change <em>your </em>circumstances. Consume him.”</p>
<p>Makoto steps forward to address the Fisherman directly at his side. It’s taunting in the way he towers over the statuesque figure. “It won’t save him. I’ll get to him before you can take me. You’re barely keeping him alive, aren’t you? It will be easy.”</p>
<p>“Be quiet.”</p>
<p>Sousuke understands time is untrustworthy in another dimension within a box of a demon’s purposefully illusory construct, to put it lightly, and he can’t say for certain just how long he was staring at a feast-laden table. But it sticks on him and won’t let go that he can’t deduce how Makoto would have figured this out in the single precious moment they had to assess the situation upon entering the quarters before being swept into the fuckery. Imprisoned sure, they knew that. But barely alive? He wouldn’t have a reason to hide the information from Sousuke had he known it beforehand, either.</p>
<p>The ground now slithers, tendrils snaking beneath the rugs. Makoto has to notice it, right? Rin shifts uncomfortably behind Sousuke, from holding Sousuke down to holding him steady in anticipation of tumult. It would be better if Rin could threaten his life from a standing position. His knees ache, punishing hardwood pushing up into his kneecaps, and if the room isn’t stable he would like the ability to dodge anything that falls.</p>
<p>“You’re forcing him to stay with you and you’re both dying for it. He would be here if he could be.” Makoto pauses, searching for another angle. “No, if he <em>wanted</em> to be. He hates you, doesn’t he? You did this to him.”</p>
<p>The rooted Fisherman laughs, rumbling the walls with a crusty vibrato. The candlelight flickers, in danger of snuffing out. A few sconces fight to stay lit, but succumb and go dark beneath unrelenting falling debris.</p>
<p>The laughter dies abruptly. “That’s how you want to do this? Well all right.” The room falls quiet and tense. “It would have been better to take a stronger body for myself, but I’ll simply do without. Rin, get rid of him.”</p>
<p>Rin is rough and ruthless to resume his assassin’s position. Sousuke grunts through it, the pull on his chin eliciting a pop from his neck. He floods with wildfire all over, nostrils flaring on his feverish exhales and muscles freezing. Of course he will do it. Gou is right there reminding him she’s at stake. What can Sousuke do about it? What would he do about it? Overpower Rin, endanger Gou? No. He will do nothing, paralyzed with indecision and an overbearing conscience.</p>
<p>“Rin,” Sousuke tries lamely on a shaky tongue, “don’t do this.” Rin’s answer is bleak. The tip’s edge pierces the soft flesh beneath his right ear, stinging. Sousuke gasps, flinching away instinctively, earning Rin’s knee to his back to push him back into place.</p>
<p>Choked, he strains: “I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p>Simultaneously, the Fisherman commands: “Haruka, drink.”</p>
<p>And Gou, through the thick of the illusion somehow reaching out: “Rin, <em>please</em> don’t!”</p>
<p>Also simultaneously, Haru’s gaze trails to the side just a fraction as he tips the goblet to his lips, only just so, and Sousuke catches it. In that split second, Rin’s arm tenses, coiling the strength behind his grip to steady the tremors shaking the blade and steel his unwilling spirit to carry out his unspeakable task. In that split second, Sousuke realizes the surging static flurry he is sharing with Makoto’s heart is coming from… Haru.</p>
<p>The moment, compounded and layered into a tight ball until it inflects, explodes into many moments thereafter, stutter-streamed.</p>
<p>Makoto, the Makoto to the Fisherman’s right, the Makoto standing nearest to Gou, throws out a shadow that is very not Makoto’s. The pitch is Haru’s, and it grabs Gou, it grabs Sousuke, and it grabs Rin and takes Rin’s knife away just as he commits to something he could never take back out of senseless desperation. Sousuke doesn’t know where it takes them, and he rebels instinctually against any movement without Makoto. Can’t leave him there alone, can’t can’t can’t—</p>
<p>then he is in two places at once. Wherever he is. And from the corner of Makoto’s mind. Not quite inhabiting, and held back from fully experiencing, but aware.</p>
<p>Haru, who is truly Makoto maintaining an impossible construct over everyone on top of the Fisherman’s illusion, dissolves his cover with a room-shuddering sigh. Makoto, properly revealed, throws the heavy chair back to clatter and slam to the floor as he stands with purpose and intent. He draws from the sleeve of his sweater a familiar wooden stake that should be in Sousuke’s inner coat pocket and is now, he realizes, not there.</p>
<p>Makoto doesn’t blink, doesn’t second guess. He thrusts forward to stab the Fisherman through his heart as soon as he has stability in his legs to do it.</p>
<p>The Fisherman snatches his wrist. He is a rooted sitting statue and then he is a rooted standing statue, with Makoto’s arm in a crushing statue’s grip.</p>
<p>“Oh, Makoto, how flawed.”</p>
<p>Makoto’s inhale is sharp, his eyes are wide in shock. He doesn’t manage to find a way out of it before the Fisherman shifts once more, crushing what of Makoto’s bones are viced within his grip. He cries out but inverts into his mirrored underworld where the Fisherman is not, appearing on his other side and lunging forward again, stake poised in his opposite hand.</p>
<p>The Fisherman blinks in place. One instance Makoto is confidently positioned to attempt the stab again, the next he is flying four feet back into the crumbling wall, force invisible. Now the Fisherman is a statue standing tall, arm outstretched, as he would stand if he had physically shoved Makoto with that inhuman force.</p>
<p>From here they grapple, with Sousuke helplessly double-visioned and frustratingly not present to assist. He can only witness from a derealized state, as the drunkest one at a party witnesses a conversation about reincarnation at one in the morning: poorly, with semi-conscious spots blacking out during the incomprehensible bits. He’s burning up, between pulling on Haru to intervene or let him go and managing an incomprehensible brain-tearing sear for his disobedience. His bonded vampire is in life-threatening danger, he is injured, he is under duress, and Sousuke is not responding to the stress as he is required to, as he is cursed to do.</p>
<p>At best, Makoto dodges the Fisherman’s attempts to disarm and neutralize him. At worst, and more often, Makoto can’t keep up with him. Not on his turf, not in his centuries-old construct. He is his ship, he is his quarters. The Fisherman moves in dizzying, pulsing patterns, the same disjointed hopping a strobe light would produce in a black room.</p>
<p>Troubling, the ferocity of Makoto’s demon is not present either. He only stands a chance if he fights with it, but he can’t or he won’t. Sousuke isn’t able to determine why at first. He can hardly focus on that aspect at all anyway. Every blow Makoto takes, every bone that fractures, every muscle that pulls is partially Sousuke’s injury too, his disobedience turns Makoto’s pain on him tenfold, and Sousuke is much less physically resilient than an immortal.</p>
<p>Soon though, clear as day, Sousuke understands. Makoto takes a tumble through a sliver of manufactured horrorscape, pulled into and shoved out of a nightmare of the Fisherman’s creation. It is only for a nearly imperceptible moment, but what he sees there wrings acid from his spine. A corrosive and liquefying rush of flight adrenaline trickles down his body and rubberizes the bones of his legs. He falls to the dusty floor, scuttling back and turning over to get away from the Fisherman now standing with something of an amused squint to his eyes. Makoto’s demon can’t work with that state of fear, something so aggressive can’t find balance with a cowering commander in retreat.</p>
<p>Makoto is too afraid to fight. The room that hasn’t changed since he escaped it all that time ago, the Captain can still tower over him wielding terror as his weapon, memories of being trapped and manipulated are forced into the open. Both re-lived and made anew. All while he believes he is alone, while he thinks he only needs to give Haru enough time to get everyone to safety now that he tried and failed to take the Fisherman out quickly.</p>
<p>Makoto is quiet through the entire dogged fight. In that sense, he is strong, offering the Fisherman no satisfaction. No blow will break him, and he is collected enough that while he is scared, he is still thinking ahead. The Fisherman, by contrast, shows cracks. He grunts his frustrations louder and louder when his hits only graze, or connect but don’t down Makoto as he intends them to. His janky movements, while intimidating and powerful, allow for no miniscule adjustments when Makoto foresees what’s next.</p>
<p>As Makoto recovers from the shock of what he saw, he orients where he is on the floor in relation to the rest of the quarters and breaks fast for the back of the room. From a crawl to a wobbly run, he moves with purpose, anticipating and dodging the worst of the Fisherman’s aggressive shoves and spins to keep him away from his goal.</p>
<p>A delicate shoji Sousuke didn’t notice before is Makoto’s destination. It is highly decorative, and divides a portion of the room off from the rest. He throws himself into it with abandon and uses his weight to tear it down and break the screen. Enraged, the Fisherman barely misses shredding Makoto to splinters along with what remains of the wooden frame as he passes after Makoto in pursuit.</p>
<p>Haru makes another concerted effort to wrangle Sousuke back into his spatial rend from Sousuke’s stubborn leak into Makoto’s. When he does it, some transference must occur, as Haru wholesale freezes just as Sousuke rejects him and earns another glimpse from Makoto’s eyes.</p>
<p>Makoto stands over an inert corpse on a raised bed, stake poised above its chest and muscles flexed to drive it down into its heart with lethal strength despite his injuries. In suspension, the smell of burning ancient wood and smoke precedes a hazy creep; not all the candlelight was extinguished. Despite Makoto knowing some part of what he would find behind the screen, he clearly did not expect to find exactly this.</p>
<p>“You did <em>this </em>to him? <em>This</em> is what happened to—” Makoto realizes thickly, the details of the situation unfolding in real time. “You’re torturing him. Holding him here.”</p>
<p>The Fisherman stands mirrored to Makoto’s position. His form this time is standing straight and tall, with no discernable emotion or reaction etched into his old and cavernous face.</p>
<p>The corpse Makoto threatens to stab is an equally ancient and weathered individual of dubious consciousness. He is less demonic and otherworldly than his counterpart in feature, and more the part of an old and dying man. He is, by process of elimination, the First Mate, and where once he was a nightmare of equal measure in the hallowed halls of Haru’s and Makoto’s stories, he is now a pathetic, decaying prisoner within the Fisherman’s perpetual construct.</p>
<p>“I am finding us new life,” the Fisherman responds in an echo that bounces around the room. “He will see, with a new body, what he <em>used </em>to see in me, in our way of life. How glorious it was.”</p>
<p>Makoto balks. His boiling contempt for the being laying at his mercy is at odds with his sour disgust for what has been done to him. “He loved you and he trusted you. I remember that. He did everything for you and this is how you returned that?”</p>
<p>“He saw what you did and let it make him a coward.” An ancient sigh blows the smoke into swirls. “After everything, he betrayed me too. He bonded with me. Asked me to turn him. Fought by my side for decades. We were the stewards of the ocean, rich and powerful beyond measure.” His booming and echoing voice refines to a pointed sneer. “Then you put ideas in his head. We were supposed to ascend together, cross into hell together. You did this to him.”</p>
<p>“You chose power. He didn’t.” Makoto shakes his head. “You don’t get to have both.”</p>
<p>“Give me your body. I created you. I own it,” the Fisherman answers. “Then I will show you what I can do with it, as you have abdicated your duty to hell. I will devour you <em>and </em>your curse and prove I am capable of more than the mindless corruption of you lesser demons. I will show hell what it means to ascend and I will do it with the only one who has never left. Who always believed in me.”</p>
<p>Simply, concisely, Makoto appraises his monologue: “No.” The growing nest of conflicted knots in his heart pulls straight into a clean line. Clarity.</p>
<p>“No?”</p>
<p>“None of that is true anymore. You are a monster. That’s all.”</p>
<p>The glow of spreading flame backlights a statue that now moves as a man does. The Fisherman wrings his face into something resembling a smile. The inhuman ridges and angles only serve to make it sinister, but more worrisome than that cartoonishly severe mask is a set of eyes devoid of any conscientiousness and yet so convinced that what they see in their actions is care, is love. “I didn’t want to hurt you, I need that body strong for my taking. But I can see you will not understand why this is necessary. I can lose Haruka and find another, I can lose your pet, but I can’t lose my body.”</p>
<p>Makoto redoubles his grip on the stake. “You won’t take it. And I’ll put him out of his misery.”</p>
<p>“No, you won’t.”</p>
<p>Whatever he does to throw Makoto from his spot also jostles Sousuke and Haru out of the moment. Instead of taking the opportunity to get Sousuke back under his control without Sousuke’s stubborn heel dug into another dimension, as far as Sousuke can interpret it without a solid form or sense of what the fuck is going on, Haru pushes him back out. Sousuke is crushed between the limits of how far he can see what’s going on and Haru’s desperation to see more of it, and there’s a sense that Sousuke’s multi-dimensional exertion also weighs down Haru’s ability to make definitive moves. Shared minds sure are a bitch for everyone involved.</p>
<p>But Sousuke quickly learns Haru’s pushing is not just idle curiosity. It’s frenetic, like he’s rattling the bars of a cage and screaming for help.</p>
<p>The Fisherman is no longer simply nipping at Makoto’s heels to gently bring him down. Comparatively, his renewed onslaught is vicious. He wields the same sort of illusory burr grinders as Makoto does, but refined, more precise, and more numerous. They lurk and break the surface tension of reality like svelte marine predators break water to launch one-shot sneak attacks on their prey. When they attack, the Fisherman is exposed for the old decrepit body he is, losing the statuesque glamor. When they retreat, he regains his form. He wears his demon as an armor, inverting it to the outside of himself, to preserve his unfed flesh.</p>
<p>The stifling size of the smoke-laden room makes Makoto’s dodging clumsy and stunted. He trips over up-ended furniture and tangles into curtains and rugs. His struggle decimates the order of the place until it resembles a room pulled apart and picked over in a robbery.</p>
<p>When the weapons catch him, even braise him, they hit him hard enough to black out Sousuke’s access. When Sousuke catches the next single-second moment, Makoto is slower. His gasps and hisses are deep down his throat, contracting his lungs. His spatial awareness is reduced to the mass of his own failing body. He doesn’t look at himself, only keeps his eyes fixed to the next safe area, preventing Sousuke from seeing the extent of the damage. He’s grateful for that. Steadily but assuredly, Makoto loses any upper hand he may have had, and becomes a doomed plaything to the Fisherman’s confident cat.</p>
<p>“Give up,” Sousuke catches in one twilight-toned glimpse.</p>
<p>“No,” Makoto answers.</p>
<p>Then he stops responding to the taunts. He stops running. He stops diving. Sousuke’s limited vantage suddenly opens up as if he’s walked onto a sunny, tranquil field after days in the stormy dark.</p>
<p>Sousuke isn’t present for why, but he comes to again as all of Makoto’s adrenaline drains. His primal reactive response no longer chokes out Sousuke’s higher cerebral connection. Haru is so forceful now Sousuke can call it a temporary familiar-ship— help him <em>help him</em> — but there’s a barrier. Now that Sousuke can feel more, experience more, he can see clearly how Makoto is using his mirrors to keep Haru from dropping everyone elsewhere and returning to assist.</p>
<p>Backed into a corner, Makoto stands to the best of his ability and with immeasurable difficulty, uses the bracing of either wall to guide and hold him up. Coming right for him, a sense of finality. The grinders braid and become one, poised to render him broken and unconscious for the Fisherman’s taking. Just down enough to leave him vulnerable, his body split open for a new inhabitant, but his delicate heart intact. He would eventually heal through it. Eventually.</p>
<p>Makoto coughs, over the smoke, and excavates his voice from beneath the layers of dust lining his throat. “I said <em>no</em>.”</p>
<p>The burring weapon locks on and breaks the surface tension, too feral to stop now. Makoto leans and heaves a wooden side table into its path, forcing it to shatter into large wooden splinters it now carries forward with itself. He opens a mirror at his back, as he did when he walked Sousuke into the inverted place before, and he allows the demon drill to pierce him through, wooden refuse and all. It’s scorched earth. It’s desperate. It’s Haru going silent and still and Sousuke falling through the canyons the makeshift wooden daggers tear through Makoto’s heart.</p>
<p>He steps backwards into his mirror along with the momentum of the assault, allowing the demonic entity to pass through him and out into the nowhere of the inversion. Using the suspended time afforded him in that alternate space before the Fisherman can unravel his construct and injuries can appear, he walks up to the exposed Fisherman, and drives the stake he never lost into the center of his chest.</p>
<p>Sousuke does not know what happens when the Fisherman dies. Makoto dies first.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Sousuke looks out over a flat, parched wasteland.</p>
<p>His mind, body, soul recombined with the ease and delicacy of the snap of a thick rubber band on an unsuspecting wrist.</p>
<p>He was never knocked unconscious, he would’ve needed a body for that. It’s that he was in a few different heads and then he was coldly cut off. The next eyes he saw through were his own.</p>
<p>Then he remembers why.</p>
<p>There’s a hole in his chest. He clutches a fist into the fabric of his shirt, clawing for any remnant, any hope, that Makoto is still there within him. He isn’t. He’s gone. The absence of is so all-consuming Sousuke can’t entertain the delusion for longer than a breath. Sousuke is his own island, unmoored to any soul, any person. His thoughts and feelings stop at his shores. The pact of the curse is as if it never was, because it is no longer necessary. Makoto is gone and doesn’t need him anymore.</p>
<p>“Oh no, no, no,” he spills from his shocked and parted mouth, over and over. “No, no, no why did you do that? <em>Why </em>did you <em>do</em> that?”</p>
<p>No answers come, of course. There aren’t any.</p>
<p>He whips his head to the beat of denial, breath quickening until it trips a breaker and comes in short, erratic bursts. There’s cotton packed between his ears, muffling the sounds of his anguish and sandbagging the noxious flood rising up from his feet. It threatens to drop him, and he can’t comprehend if it means he will get back up if it does.</p>
<p>So he stumbles forward, feet dragging. There’s nowhere to go, there’s no use in staying put. There are only the deep fissures in the ground tugging him forward as he thinks about nothing at all, and everything at once. Pace by pace, the flood recedes. It leaves behind ruins. An eerie heavy fog settles over everything broken and displaced.</p>
<p>Sousuke walks. Devoid of the silly, persistent anxiousness that had wormed its way into his heart and taken roots he first resented then somehow grew to adore. Already forgetting the way the heights of his joy and the depths of his dark manifested in Sousuke and exposed his secrets, and how Makoto handled that exposure with such honesty. How he captivated Sousuke, so consumed him, until the curse wasn’t so much of one, really.</p>
<p>Rin was right, about forgetting. It begins right away.</p>
<p>The desaturated and crumbling earth laid out in all directions he keeps his gaze affixed to abruptly cuts to black. The fissures have led him to this spot. He hears it belatedly, a plucky and languid melody of no discernable arrangement. Only discordant notes with no relation to one another.</p>
<p>It comes from the dark, hunched form bunched at Sousuke’s feet.</p>
<p>“Haru?”</p>
<p>The bundle rolls up slowly from the base of his spine, unfurling from his curl over his guitar. He looks up at Sousuke, eyes ever bright and blue but unfocused and disconnected. Slowly, the blur of him sharpens. “...You.”</p>
<p>“Me.”</p>
<p>Haru looks down at the guitar in his lap upon Sousuke’s affirmation. “I don’t know…” He worries his lip. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”</p>
<p>Sousuke taps one of the fissures he followed with the toe of his boot. “Long enough for your shadow to root.”</p>
<p>Haru can’t make sense of why he is the epicenter of such a strange land shift, then apparently remembers who he is and the sort of demon he wields. “I didn’t mean to… I see.”</p>
<p>He stretches out one fissure until it is no longer digging vertically, making it two-dimensionally flat and wide on the ground, then unceremoniously drops his guitar into the void. Once he buttons that up, he groans and stretches the fossilization out of his joints, and takes Sousuke’s offered hand up. Only then does he wonder.</p>
<p>“Makoto?”</p>
<p>Sousuke shakes his head. “I uh…” He touches the thick of his sternum. “He’s not there.” Saying it doesn’t sound like his own voice. The missing part is still a smoldering crater.</p>
<p>“Oh.” It clearly stuns him, sitting over his psyche and unable to absorb into his reality.</p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p>He hums, and moves on. “Rin and Gou?”</p>
<p>“...I don’t know.”</p>
<p>Addlement gives way to concentration. “They should be here somewhere I… I took you all here.” He shakes his head and locks eyes with Sousuke again to rectify his fallen gaze. “No. You took us here.”</p>
<p>Incredulous but momentarily abiding, Sousuke half-turns and looks around. Gray, flat, nothing. A white disk in the sky on a dark gray backdrop. Not a sun, but not <em>not </em>a sun. A sterile circular disk of light like a hole has been punched in a sheet of metal. No animals, no plants. No dead animals or dead plants for that matter. No pebbles on up to distant mountains. Just flat. Forever. The only depth coming from a matrix of cracked, webbed earth that crumbles to an airy soft ash at the slightest provocation.</p>
<p>How would Sousuke take anyone anywhere, much less a place that he’s never been, only dreamed of? The focus falling off of Makoto agitates his already raw and short nerves. “I have no idea where this is, Haru.”</p>
<p>Haru isn’t surprised that Sousuke has no idea what he’s talking about per se, but he is reluctant to respond, perhaps unsettled by the truth he is trying to figure out how to break. “This is hell.”</p>
<p>It means nothing to Sousuke at this junction in his life. May as well be hell. Why not? But the longer it sits there the angrier Sousuke finds he is about it. People die for this. A lot of people die to earn a place here. For fucking what?</p>
<p>“<em>This</em> was worth all this bullshit?” he nearly shouts, arms akimbo and palms upturned to the dreary sky. “This shit? Some fucking wasteland?”</p>
<p>“There are different places,” Haru makes impatient work of explaining. “This is for those who don’t belong here. Mortals that did not die. Unworthy demons. To list the relevant exceptions. Anyway, if we’re lucky, maybe we will find Rin and Gou.”</p>
<p>To Sousuke’s speechless bewilderment, Haru takes a quick and unseeing look around and walks away in no particular direction. He doesn’t wait up, he doesn’t explain why this way is better than that way, he doesn’t acknowledge anything. Sousuke hurries after him, lest he lose him forever, but there is no cauterizing the free-bleeding grief Haru’s cold shoulder has cut into him.</p>
<p>“Hey!”</p>
<p>“I’ll send out as much pitch as I can and hopefully they find it and follow it. I can’t make sense of the space or how we arrived.”</p>
<p>“Haru!”</p>
<p>“If you have a better idea, do share.”</p>
<p>Sousuke snatches Haru by the shoulder and whips him around to face him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”</p>
<p>He sneers down at Sousuke’s hand on his shoulder until Sousuke removes it, then levels Sousuke passively, not a hair out of place nor sag to his back. His tone is flat and disaffected. “What do you want me to say?”</p>
<p>Sousuke can’t entertain the chilling thought that Makoto’s worst fears may’ve been correct. That Haru is detached, and these things don’t bother him. Makoto’s death doesn’t bother him. He won’t entertain it at all, actually. He knows Haru better than that. “Why don’t you give a shit?!”</p>
<p>Here, Haru ignites, taking his voice above his usual puttering mutter and punching it right through Sousuke’s loud but brittle bark. He won’t abide that accusation. “<em>What</em> do you want me to <em>say</em>?!”</p>
<p>Sousuke digs frustrated fists into his hair and heaves the only response he has to a stupid question like that: <em>“Anything!” </em></p>
<p>Haru broadens his stance like a bull ready to charge. “Say anything?! I can’t <em>do </em>anything!” He screams it up into a realm that refuses to honor his pain and carry his voice. It’s muted, like shouting into soundproofing, only driving deeper how much this place is exactly the same as Sousuke’s nightmare where the punches don’t land and the sprints are a slow walk. “I couldn’t tell him not to do that! I couldn’t tell him we could help! You somehow dragged all of us here, and this is the best I could do to break the fall?! It’s <em>useless</em>! We are <em>nowhere</em>! So I have no fucking idea what to tell you, Sousuke, becuase I’m just as lost as you are!”</p>
<p>Now that Sousuke can get a better look at him, the haunt Haru holds in the hard set of his jaw and in the shadows of his eye sockets is more apparent. Guilt. Easy to figure out why. Centuries of an unending guardianship over his and Makoto’s wellbeing, all that hunting, all that time spent keeping himself sharp and ready to fight… and it’s Makoto in the end who proves to be the insurmountable obstacle he could not have prepared for. Infuriating. Heartbreaking. An entire purpose built around one core belief destroyed right in front of him and all he could do was watch it happen.</p>
<p>It must be unbearable. So Haru isn’t bearing it at all.</p>
<p>The fight and fury vanishes. Sousuke’s just cold now. Even his clothes are heavy. Haru is wary of him, loath to unravel more in his presence but willing to fight and hold his ground if he must. “It literally tore something out of me. We don’t have to talk about it but please don’t leave me with it by myself.”</p>
<p>A compromise, best as Sousuke can finagle it. Haru relents, too. “All right.”</p>
<p>But he needs to know, and Haru has more insight into the affairs of demons. “Is he really gone?”</p>
<p>Haru sighs, long and tired. “This is where demons go. It’s not a judgement thing. It’s an energy thing. Whether they are invited or they fail to be invited, this is where demonic energy originates and returns to in some form. So. Yes and no.”</p>
<p>A damnable thread, luring Sousuke in to pick at it. He swallows his impulse to pull, but he does look closer. “He’s here.”</p>
<p>“Somewhere. Not <em>here</em>.” Meaning, this outer decay where they have found themselves. “I couldn’t begin to guess where. Or in what form, if any. I don’t have that insight. I know very little about hell, by design. What happens to us when we come here, or where anything is. I don’t think hell is anywhere, and it does not have boundaries or traversable space with an endpoint. It just is.”</p>
<p>Fuck all that. “But he’s here.”</p>
<p>“It’s not the hope you think it is,” Haru warns. “Don’t cling to it.”</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>Haru stoops and takes a pinch of dirt from the ground. He holds it out between them, then grinds it between his thumb and forefinger until each tiny grain drops away. He opens his hand, revealing it clean. “Go find the exact particles I just scattered.”</p>
<p>The energizing, turning gears that had barely cranked back to life come to an unceremonious halt. Sousuke is silent, unable to find a response that isn’t some magical thinking Pollyanna nonsense.</p>
<p>“Right.” Haru nods. “Well we have a lot of time to walk around and find the others. We should at least make an attempt to be together if we’re stuck here indefinitely.”</p>
<p>Cowed, Sousuke trails after him. And they walk. Sousuke doesn’t feel much better, but the bitter sting of death is less potent and acute. There is no permanent dying for a demon, just a transfer of energy. Is it the same thing? Could be. But he’s here, somewhere. Sousuke can focus on that. He hasn’t simply ceased to exist, never to be Makoto again. Sousuke could technically reconstruct that pinch of dirt, if he had a way to identify the particles apart from the rest. Hell is imperfect. Sousuke clings to that truism now, secretly. Besides, ruminating on solutions to stave off despair is something Sousuke is particularly adept at. Not dead. Displaced. Not dead. Displaced. Not dead. Displaced.</p>
<p>Haru splinters off his reach in a fractaled spiral that moves with them as they walk. He is a spider in the center of a void-black web, hoping to catch their missing… friends? Sure. Not many options to choose from anymore.</p>
<p>Over time, though, Haru’s enthusiasm ebbs. Some legs of the spiral peter out and disappear, others retract or laze about. Some don’t follow him to the step and drag behind like limp ropes. There are no indications he’s low on energy; that doesn’t appear to be as much of a hindrance here as it is on more mortal planes. But more obvious is that his spirit wanes, bit by bit, as what he knows to be true about where they are seeps into his psyche and demoralizes what little morale he had left.</p>
<p>It’s strangely difficult to witness him falter and shut down. Worse than if he had externalized his reaction more when he learned what happened. Haru is far from an energetic or sugar-sweet good vibes type, he wouldn’t be caught dead giving a rallying, inspirational speech about never giving up. But he is always steady. He is always reliably level-headed. Little in all of this has changed his quiet determination. His strength is effortless and abundant, he uses what he has in infinitely creative ways and never laments what he does not have. Setbacks roll off him as easy as rain on leaves. Now he looks like a wobbling tight-rope walker doomed to fall, unable to find his balance.</p>
<p>Then he stops. And sits on the ground. And digs his guitar out of the maw of his pitch. Pluck. Pluck. Pluck. Just as Sousuke found him.</p>
<p>“Hey, Haru.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter. Walk. Sit. Same difference.”</p>
<p>“We should still try.”</p>
<p>“You go ahead.”</p>
<p>There will be no moving him, Sousuke squares with that right away. He intimately knows the look of a person who will not move for anything once they’ve lost their way. With nothing left in his arsenal to keep them going for now, Sousuke sits next to him and listens to him play.</p>
<p>The notes come together and learn to play nice after a long and acrimonious exploration of competing ideas. Haru settles on folksy and ditzy, something of an acoustic waltz. It is so far away from what is appropriate or reflective of their situation that Sousuke concludes that must be the point of it. It does make him smile just slightly, despite himself. The cloudiness around Haru lets up too.</p>
<p>What remains of Haru’s search effort dances lazily, to and fro, with the moderate tempo Haru keeps. Some arms are still stretched far into the horizon line, and when they dance they mirror the reverberation of the guitar strings. Other closer, shorter tendrils of shadow twist around each other and part, his demon dancing with itself.</p>
<p>After a few loops through his waltz, to both of their arresting surprise, one of the longest arms goes taut. Haru stops playing, the sharp drop off amplifying the heavy natural silence all around them. Sousuke knows what it is, but waits for Haru to act on it. Maybe he isn’t ready to give in, not all the way.</p>
<p>“Guess it worked.” Guitar re-shelved into the abyss, Haru gets back up. Again. “Wish I could ignore it.” A good sign for both of them that he can’t.</p>
<p>In truest Rin fashion as Sousuke has determined, he makes no effort to move closer to them. When Sousuke spots the pair in the distance, he is ramrod still with his arms crossed over his chest, reeling Haru in like a fish on a line. They weren’t scattered so far after all. Haru’s relief that he managed that much is palpable. Some confidence will go a long way here.</p>
<p>Gou doesn’t abide any polite protocols and runs to Haru as they approach, embracing him around his side-stuck stiff arms. He doesn’t eat her with his demon anyway, so he must not hate it. That level of mutual forgiveness really pressures Sousuke with regards to how to deal with Rin, the guy who has aided and or abetted his murder passively and actively at least... three times now?</p>
<p>Rin steps off Haru’s shadow and allows him to gather the last of it back to himself. Gou releases Haru and takes a more conservative approach to Sousuke, sandwiching his hand between hers and offering a light squeeze. It’s no common gesture Sousuke is familiar with, but it helps him think they’ve all gotten through the worst of their getting-to-know-yous. Trips into hell really bring a group together.</p>
<p>Gou breaks the awkward ice. “I’m glad you guys are okay.”</p>
<p>“You too,” Sousuke answers.</p>
<p>Rin sighs and gives Sousuke his contrition with a low sweep of his gaze. “You want to deck me now or later?”</p>
<p>“I’m a bit of a de facto pacifist,” Sousuke answers. “I’ll come up with something else to make it even.”</p>
<p>The joke doesn’t sit well with him apparently. “I <em>am</em> sorry,” Rin insists. “But I know that isn’t enough. I’ll do what I need to to earn it.”</p>
<p>And Sousuke has no emotional energy left to be angry or vengeful. If they make it out of here, it means he might keep an eye over his shoulder for a while any time Gou is mildly inconvenienced, but he doesn’t feel Rin poses him any real threat without the impossible decisions he was constantly forced to make wearing down his soul down to a pebble-smooth surface. “It’s behind us. For a lot of reasons. But I forgive you.”</p>
<p>Satisfied, Rin stiffly nods. To Haru now: “You didn’t leave us.”</p>
<p>“I promised I wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“He didn’t eat him and ascend.”</p>
<p>“He promised he wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>No snark, Rin just looks him up and down. “Hm.” Sousuke takes it as a good sign for their trust going forward. “Well. What’s the plan to find him? I saw what I saw, right? We are where I think we are?”</p>
<p>Haru isn’t amused. “There is none. It can’t be done.”</p>
<p>“What? This is literally the one and only way it could be: we’re all inexplicably in hell.” Rin looks to Sousuke. “The fuck was that? How’d you do it? You were the only one linked to him. Had to have been you, right?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Sousuke says with a little too much dumb. “I could never control how stuck I got to him.”</p>
<p>“I could separate them for a little bit but he latched right back on,” Haru half-mutters, a thing he finds irksome. “Never got enough time to figure it out more. Makoto knew he was in danger of making it permanent.”</p>
<p>Gou gives it her spin: “So maybe Makoto is the one who pulled us down with him, through Sousuke.”</p>
<p>Haru shakes his head of that before she finishes suggesting it. “Makoto would never risk that. More likely, from what I’ve seen, it was Sousuke who held on and didn’t realize what it meant for him and all of us when he did.”</p>
<p>“Well if he was able to do that when we were stuck in the Cap’s mental maze head fuck,” Rin presses, “then why couldn’t he find Makoto again here? It’s energy shit, more straightforward.”</p>
<p>“Because he died,” Haru offers, so flat he may’ve compressed any unruly grief he had over saying it out loud into a two-dimensional disk. “There is no more curse bond to follow.”</p>
<p>Rin <em>pffts</em>, more bluster and energy than Sousuke’s ever seen him display willfully. Is it a personality? Does he have one buried beneath all the snark? “Fuck that. You wouldn’t just forget how to find him if you were literally breaking off pieces of yourself in his soul like a barbed parasite.”</p>
<p>Maybe not. “Thank you,” Sousuke clips.</p>
<p>“You don’t sound like you know what you’re talking about,” Haru says. “You sound like you’re putting together made up things as you go.”</p>
<p>Rin puffs up like a bird. Gou makes no move to intervene, so Sousuke assumes it’s harmless to let them argue out ideas. He definitely has nothing smarter up his sleeve. “I’m not, all right? Just think about it. Forget the emotional tracking device. I’m talking about Sousuke understanding what that demon thread <em>feels</em> like, how its signature is <em>different</em>. If he could see that, he could pick it out of the noise. Cap found you that way because he has that same flavor. The method exists.”</p>
<p>Haru still isn’t convinced. “He’s scattered. It’s not just a whole soul floating down the river Styx we can net out.”</p>
<p>Now Gou has something to add. “You scatter us when you move us and put us back together, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“When you’re all close to me and I am the one who took you apart. I can’t make a magnet out of myself if you’re scattered to the four winds.”</p>
<p>And thus, Sousuke can safely conclude without looking like a moron: “I’m the magnet.”</p>
<p>“Bingo,” Rin confirms.</p>
<p>“You did not think of that,” Haru levels. “You stumbled your way to it.”</p>
<p>Rin rolls his eyes. “Same difference if it works.” To Sousuke: “So… focus and find him.”</p>
<p>No pressure at all there. “This is a wasteland. Haru said he’s not in the wasteland.”</p>
<p>“It’s all the same hell folded on top of each other.” He layers his hands one over the other in a stack, then punches down. “Punch through to another one.”</p>
<p>Turns out a cocky sense of reckless abandon and confident posturing is a quick way under Haru’s skin. “You’re making that up, Rin!”</p>
<p>“I could be right, Haru!”</p>
<p>“Guys,” Gou sighs. “Calm down. Let’s back up. Sousuke, does it make sense?”</p>
<p>“No. I mean, yes, but I can’t control it. And even then, there’s no curse bonding me to him to guide me for a starting point. Haru’s right that the connection <em>I</em> know isn’t there.”</p>
<p>Everyone falls quiet and mulls it over. Sousuke is no help without their expertise in these matters, and grows frustrated with how empty his thoughts are. He wishes he could do it alone, could prove something to someone, somewhere. Himself, if he’s being honest. Always about him, these pity parties, when it should be about everyone else. It should be about Makoto. That thought takes a lap, then another. He’s circling around an idea, and—</p>
<p>“It’s my body,” Sousuke blurts out unbidden, words ahead of his still unset thoughts. “It’s me.” Because any time he was aware and able to push past what were supposed to be his limits, he had to get rid of his body, mentally or literally, and de-center himself. They don’t say anything, just wait for him to elaborate, so he continues. “I think I can do it. Haru needs to take me and y’know, keep me all… not real.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know if I know the way to go deeper…” Haru knits his brows and untangles a snagged thought. “The vessel of pitch. The artifact.”</p>
<p>Haru explained it when Sousuke was recovering from his injuries. They draw their demonic scaffolding from demonic artifacts. Haru remarked he drew from a vessel of pitch and wrote it off as irrelevant. Now, though, it’s a gateway.</p>
<p>“You can follow it in?”</p>
<p>Haru surprisingly agrees. “Why not? Not easy maybe, a fish swimming upstream. But should all be connected.”</p>
<p>“I think that sounds solid,” Gou says. “But then what? If you get him back.”</p>
<p>Not that she expects anyone to know. She is reminding them this is half-baked at best. There is still the pressing issue of being trapped in hell even if they’re successful. It would be worrisome if there were any value in being stuck on the outskirts for what may be an eternity. The worst that could happen to them is staying exactly where they are right now. Rin’s and Haru’s solemn expressions would agree with that line of thought.</p>
<p>Sousuke shakes his head. “We just have to do it. What’s after could change depending on what’s next.”</p>
<p>Far now from the brink of giving up, Haru has renewed determination in his eyes. His mission isn’t over yet while there’s still another trick to try. “It <em>will </em>work. I know my own shadow better than myself and Sousuke is a stubborn ass. He could find any one of us in this situation. He clearly doesn’t give up when he should.”</p>
<p>Horrifically touching. Nightmare fuel. A bare ass red face is not subtle in this unholy land of gray. He clears his throat. “Wow, Haru.”</p>
<p>Haru is quick to cover his sentimental tracks when under the scrutiny of too much company. “Knock that off your face. I mean it’s a character flaw you bullheaded idiot. You might get us trapped somewhere worse.”</p>
<p>“That’s fair.” Better to thank Haru by not thanking Haru.</p>
<p>“You sure you got us all?” Rin challenges Haru, a not unsubtle goading edge to the charge. Just in case Haru was internally doubting himself, which by Haru’s marginally widened eyes, he may’ve been. “‘Cuz if you particulate us and drop us out of existence or whatever it is that you do I’ll become God and strangle you.”</p>
<p>Haru nods. “I’m sure.”</p>
<p>And once more, Haru’s maw wraps them up and drags them into oblivion.</p>
<p>What follows is, as best as Sousuke can perceive it, an instance of delirious nonsense. A mortal mind laying down sloppy train tracks of explanation in front of an engine barreling down its path as if the tracks are already present and dependable.</p>
<p>Going against the grain, swimming upstream, is an atomic-splitting agony. Sousuke is helpless at keeping track of himself, leaving his safety to Haru. Rin and Gou can’t be faring any better. But Haru does it, of course he can. Haru never let a little thing like a normal ordinary vampiric curse limit his dimensional shifting abilities and his defiance pays off now tenfold.</p>
<p>If hell proper is fire and brimstone as the lore dictates, Sousuke can’t perceive it. He doesn’t belong there, he shouldn’t want to. And besides, he is Haru’s power and his silent fear, he is Gou’s rigid analysis, he is Rin’s thrill seeking. They are Sousuke’s single, solitary focus. There is no room for lateral observations, there is only one shared goal at the end of a corridor.</p>
<p>True to Rin’s theory, they <em>punch</em> out of and into hell. Or, <em>because </em>of Rin’s theory they do it. A shared visualization made real. Then, light, billions of trails and pinpricks. Either countless souls, countless demons, something else, or a combination of all things. It is not for a mortal’s mind to put together, it isn’t even for a demon’s mind, or Haru would provide some structure for the rest of them since they are all one consciousness.</p>
<p>What would Makoto look like here?</p>
<p>Haru admonishes that question with a sharp snap. Sousuke’s thinking too selfishly again.</p>
<p><em>Who</em> is Makoto?</p>
<p>Better. The perspective widens. Makoto’s appearance is finite and stunted. <em>Who </em>he is though, is vast. Who he is to multiple perspectives is more than vast, it approaches infinity. He can be anything depending on who is thinking of him, and when: friend, enemy, kind, cruel, reserved, outspoken. Anything, everything. The collective consciousness of those who have known him at all stages, in many forms, in times bright and dark, grants Sousuke clarity he can’t get alone.</p>
<p>Sousuke might have found Makoto before on his own eventually, based on how intimately he was forced to know him. Then how intimately he wanted to. Like panning through the mud for gold, he could find the pieces that got ripped out of him and put Makoto back together. But now he understands there are numerous, specific paths that lead to Makoto. Haru understands he can take them all at once, he can skip right to what they know can only be him, and discard the rest without ever having to see any of it. They can pull Makoto to them, and only him, without ever touching the rest.</p>
<p>And if that weren’t enough (and it is), Makoto knows they’re here, and he calls out for them in the only way that would make sense to Sousuke to make sure they don’t miss:</p>
<p>
  <em>—In the shadows,<br/></em>
  <em>Let me come and sing to you<br/></em>
  <em>Let me dream a song that I can bring to you—</em>
</p>
<p>Who else but Makoto would think to sing?</p>
<p>Then he’s theirs, from all reaches, made whole.</p>
<p>A single confirming moment of it is all they get before Haru punches them elsewhere, and a single moment elsewhere is all they spend before something bigger finds them</p>
<p>and eats them</p>
<p>and what little sense there was to hold onto, is gone.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The scene is as Sousuke left it, only this time, he is physically there.</p>
<p>An equally stunned silent Haru, Gou, and Rin stand to Sousuke’s right, set up in a careful line as if they were dolls posed in a dollhouse attending the wake of the First Mate, laid before them on his bed.</p>
<p>Exactly like that, were the dollhouse on fire, in the Captain’s quarters, on a ghost ship hiding in unspace.</p>
<p>Everything is exactly the same from the moment just before Makoto plunged a stake into the Fisherman’s heart. The violence in the movement, Makoto’s ferocity and certainty behind his thrust, the shock on the Fisherman’s face. All identical, barring one significant detail: Makoto is unharmed.</p>
<p>Given the chance to do it again, Makoto does so without hesitation. Perhaps harder this time, unhindered by a broken body and a pierced heart of his own. He steps back only once the stake plunges down to its hilt, lodged deep in its target. He’s tense, ready to attack again if he must. The Fisherman is not immediately affected. No, he looks down at the handle protruding from his chest, to Makoto in angry confusion, then with a dawning realization to the resting place of his First Mate.</p>
<p>“You,” he utters. “You did this. After all I’ve done for you?”</p>
<p>And Haru, who isn’t Haru for the duration of his brief response, provides the First Mate’s aptly curt: “Especially.”</p>
<p>The Fisherman goes by way of his decrepit hunters. He collapses into a boneless heap of himself and fades until he flakes away at his edges moving in, a desaturated ash.</p>
<p>Makoto stares at his corpse, passive and placid. No joy on him, but no regret either. Contemplation, if he had to guess, but Sousuke is still aggrieved to find there is still a raw chasm torn in him where Makoto’s best kept secrets used to hide.</p>
<p>“Good riddance,” he says definitively, removing anyone’s doubt. He then looks to them all at his frustrating distance, in the thick of the choking smoke. For Haru, love, for Rin and Gou, gratefulness, for Sousuke, an intimate sadness. “Haru you have to take them home.” He lays a palm over his chest. “It stirs.”</p>
<p>His demon is meant to take power now that a vacuum has opened up.</p>
<p>“Makoto, no,” Sousuke finds his voice to say, ready to panic, ready to go through all that shit again if he needs to.</p>
<p>But Haru shakes his head, a gentle peace in its sway. “We don’t need to.” He looks to the First Mate, still a fossilized half-corpse, alive and dead. “He reached into hell and pulled us out. He will send us all back home. He’s speaking to me.”</p>
<p>“What?” Makoto breathes, incredulous.</p>
<p>“It’s an apology. We’ll need him to send us back. I don’t have it in me. I used myself up.” He’s holding two items, from where they came Sousuke can’t fathom at first, but he understands soon enough. A pitch black vessel and a pitch black mirror. “...Because I stole these.”</p>
<p>Artifacts. <em>The </em>artifacts, from hell. That second punch before the First Mate yanked them all back.</p>
<p>Gou gasps. “If we destroy them then we’re all… free.”</p>
<p>“Give it to me,” Rin demands.</p>
<p>“No.” Haru turns to Sousuke. “We can’t, it owns our curses.” Sousuke’s then holding onto the mirror Haru swiped out of another dimension dedicated to eternal damnation, but surely it’s fine. Fucking pirates. It’s round with a frame, no frills. Just black, and useless as a mirror at that without a reflection. “He can, though. He’s no one’s anymore. Hurry, Sousuke.”</p>
<p>Haru still clings to the pitcher. Sousuke sees uncertainty on his frown. “...What about you?”</p>
<p>He looks away, holding it closer in a way that sinks a pit in Sousuke’s stomach. “...I haven’t decided.”</p>
<p>In the few seconds it took to have the exchange, Makoto’s constitution has weakened considerably. He’s fighting back something horribly, horribly hungry. Sousuke can’t worry about Haru’s decision. Makoto’s widened eyes search Sousuke with fear for what’s happening to him, but also to both their surprise, some measure of hope. No time to debate anything else.</p>
<p>“You’re sure?” he asks Makoto, a formality really. Makoto’s already told him there is nothing he wants more.</p>
<p>Hoarse and pained: “<em>Please</em>.”</p>
<p>Sousuke smashes the mirror into the ground, sending it’s shards scattering across the worn and dappled floor and ending the curseline for good.</p>
<p>All around them, the Fisherman’s already dissolving construct shatters. The walls fall into the fire falls into the floor. The room destabilizes turbulently, abruptly cut off from its illusory source. The ship itself shakes. The island in the rift may be imploding, so deep are the fractures forming beneath his feet.</p>
<p>Makoto full-body flinches as an invisible aura seemingly snaps off his skeleton, a resounding <em>crack</em> cleaving over the rumble and the echoes of shattering panes of glass falling from great heights. The demon breaks off him violently, in attestation to how at odds Makoto always was with it. Sousuke mindlessly barrels through the mess on his own unsteady legs, noticing how Makoto goes blank and wobbly ahead of an impending unconsciousness. He gets there in time to break some of the fall, just as a deeper, thicker pitch pools from beneath the First Mate and stretches towards them.</p>
<p>Haru, unsure and defensive, Rin fighting past Gou’s restraining him despite the heaves and lurches of the quaking room to get to the vessel in Haru’s hands, screaming for his freedom <em>goddammit</em> destroy it you <em>fuck</em> don’t ruin my life <em>again— </em>and the First Mate swallows Rin mid-tirade, swallows Gou along with him, and takes Makoto from Sousuke’s grasp and disappears him too.</p>
<p>Leaving Haru, Sousuke, and the pitcher.</p>
<p>“You don’t want to give it up?” Sousuke asks around the destruction.</p>
<p>Haru is unbothered by the quakes, and walks over it all towards Sousuke. He holds the pitcher out and examines it dispassionately. It’s plain, matte black. A large bulb on the bottom tapering to a fluted top. The long skinny handle blends into the body, not even a suggestion of decoration. Utilitarian. “I don’t think I care about giving anything up, but… going back.”</p>
<p>“It’s all you’ve known.”</p>
<p>“I think so.”</p>
<p>Sousuke can understand it. The thrill of his hunts, the addictive globetrotting, the adventures in foreign lands with so many engrossing people living so many lives… to trade it for finality. For mortal life, something that only brought him suffering for the preciously short period of time he had it. Why go back to something so painful?</p>
<p>“I understand. Makoto would understand.”</p>
<p>This grants him some relief, but isn’t his primary concern. “I would corrupt eventually… Makoto is right. I’d turn into something awful. Or I’d turn into him. I see that now.”</p>
<p>The First Mate. Imprisoned in his own decayed body, should Haru continue not to feed how he is supposed to.</p>
<p>Haru shakes his head and hands Sousuke the pitcher. “But you’re my friends. It’s a simple decision, isn’t it?” He turns to the First Mate. “I won’t kill you. Send us now, then do it yourself if you wish.”</p>
<p>The pitch hesitates, then stretches for them as slow as molasses. Reluctant to the sentence Haru has given him, but with the collapse of this world, he didn’t have much of a choice anyway. There is no saving him, even should Haru have a way to bring him with them. He’s done either way without the Fisherman maintaining this construct, keeping him technically alive.</p>
<p>The First Mate snatches them up for what Sousuke hopes is the last time a grinning, sharp-toothed void maw will carry him across dimensions—</p>
<p>Placing them squarely back in the forest, next to the creek.</p>
<p>Rin and Gou are tending to Makoto, who is awake again and sitting up on his elbows. He hones in on the pitcher in Sosuke’s hands, and all it represents. He is too afraid to look at Haru, too afraid to have gone through this and realize he will still lose him. Even Rin, all fight a moment ago, holds his breath with Gou as they pin all their hopes on this one, consequential action in suspended silence.</p>
<p>Consequential for them. Not for him. Sousuke drops the delicate vessel with careless flourish.</p>
<p>As the dry clay pieces disintegrate and carry off and away into the creek on the breeze, Haru faces the demon detaching from him. He reaches out to its amorphous silhouette and caresses its uppermost curve. It pushes up into his palm. Gently, intimately, for a creature who can only seek blood and power by design. Haru has embedded within some piece of his humanity, against all sense.</p>
<p>Haru is mournful to lose a part of himself, as complicated in origin as that part is, as violent as its inclinations are. They had an understanding, a compromise, and having to say goodbye to chapters better off closed doesn’t mean it’s easy to do it. Whether discarded like a handful of hot coals as Makoto did or reverently released as Haru does, Sousuke sees the different kind of strength it takes for both.</p>
<p>Then with one final cheeky bombast, Haru’s shadow becomes its signature toothy maw and passes through him one last time, and is gone.</p>
<p>Makoto pushes up to stand and <em>runs</em>. Rin and Gou stare at each other and down at their bodies in matched disbelief before crushing each other into a tight and rapturous embrace. Haru catches Makoto by his upper arms to steady him as he rushes across the space separating them, grinning wide and lighter on his feet than Sousuke’s ever seen him. They grab each other’s hands and marvel, and pinch at each other’s ears and laugh, and feel all around their faces in open and childish awe.</p>
<p>Sousuke kept his promise to himself and showed up for them as best he could. And he didn’t die permanently. It's a victory. He can feel like he lost something too, and stand here with that wound deep in him that might scar over one day, might not, and still be happy for his loss. Makoto’s happiness is worth more on his face than hidden away and forced on Sousuke’s heart. The satisfaction he takes is a fullness of volume over sustenance, lacking the pride he thought he would finally feel in himself if he helped pull this off, but he can live without it. He has lived without it this long.</p>
<p>Makoto finishes harassing Haru with his pokes and prods and gives him his distance back. He bundles his unfurled joy and carries it to Sousuke, to Sousuke’s humble surprise, having expected and understood his role as an outsider looking into this moment. Makoto takes advantage of his thought-stutter and gathers Sousuke into a hug to rival the siblings behind them.</p>
<p>He’s warm. Solid. Sousuke knew conceptually this would be the case, but he isn’t prepared for the heat it brings to his face, the choke in his throat, the sting in his eyes. Makoto is holding him, really touching him, for the first time. Not dragged over an insurmountable barrier for only a moment, but really here and not going anywhere. Overcome with the new reality as it really settles in, Sousuke curses some high-garbled obscenity and crushes Makoto to his chest.</p>
<p>“Thank you so much,” Makoto says, from the amber bottom of his voice. Sousuke hums and breathes him in, soot and tarnished bronze and old wood embedded into polyester sweater fibers and all. Almost gone, almost lost forever, so many times.</p>
<p>“You scared the shit out of us,” Sousuke responds.</p>
<p>Makoto pulls back and stretches an apology over his smile. “I couldn’t risk leaving a body for him if I failed. I had to believe you would figure something out. I didn’t think you’d drag everyone to hell to do it, though.”</p>
<p>It is the smallest shift in Sousuke’s perception of events, a near miss he barely catches before it’s gone. Makoto had faith he could fix it. He trusted Sousuke entirely, he never threw himself carelessly to his death. It’s a shift that makes all the difference. Pride, <em>real </em>pride in himself, blooms within him, radiates through him.</p>
<p>Someone believes in him unconditionally. It makes him think he could tear the sky apart if he had to, it makes not knowing what’s next for him exciting and possible, no longer an arresting proposition. Makoto was sure he’d find a way to drag him out of hell; anything else after that should be more than achievable. He locks eyes with Haru over Makoto’s shoulder, who looks more wise and knowing of what’s transpiring privately than he has any explicable reason to.</p>
<p>“There was no way I’d let you go so long as I could help it. Subconscious took it literally.” Makoto is so open, so vibrant, with color on his skin and sunlight threading his hair. It isn’t a new sight for Sousuke entirely. It’s who he’s been this entire time. What’s different is he can stretch and grow and thrive in the light, now that he doesn’t need to use his strength to beat back his shadows.</p>
<p>So he adds: “You look good.”</p>
<p>And Makoto reddens, a welcome and brilliant sight to see for the first time. “I feel… good. And terrible.”</p>
<p>“Terrible?”</p>
<p>“Hungry, thirsty, warm, sore, tired.” He laughs. “It’s incredible.”</p>
<p>Haru approaches then with Rin and Gou in tow. Gou, patient until now for her turn, is next to take Makoto up and manages a tighter embrace on him than Sousuke could, hanging her arms around his neck and pulling down to meet her. Rin speaks over the bend of Makoto’s back impatiently as if he weren’t just sobbing into his sister’s shoulder; a commendable recovery, patchy faced and puffy as he still is.</p>
<p>“I’m ready to get out of this damn forest, if you guys don’t mind. A shower to wash the hell off of me, maybe.” He heaves a heavy sigh and turns to walk, presumably in the correct direction back towards civilization but what does Sousuke know. He drags his wistful desires out along with him: “A meal. A bed. A drink. A fucking nap. It’s a long way out, folks.”</p>
<p>Gou holds Makoto’s face for a brief squeeze and then lets him stand straight again. “I think you’re stuck with us for a little bit, if that’s all right.” She realizes she’s gotten ahead of herself and demures somewhat. “If you can forgive us.”</p>
<p>“I’m just happy you’re here and okay,” Makoto assures. “Thank you for everything.”</p>
<p>She beams and nods and follows Rin, ever-present backpack bouncing on her shoulders.</p>
<p>“You’ll stick around too, I hope?” Makoto asks him, to Haru’s incredulous snort. “What?”</p>
<p>Haru’s smile is wry, but good-natured. “Stick around? Good luck getting rid of him.” That’s that on that. He pivots and walks, continuing the exodus.</p>
<p>Makoto clears his throat. “What I meant was now that you don’t <em>have</em> to.”</p>
<p>There is so much he could say to test the limits of Makoto’s newly acquired flush, but time is freshly precious. A kiss should suffice.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. a simple epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re late. But they’re always late, so technically, they’re on time.</p>
<p>It can’t be helped with three people living in an apartment sharing one bathroom. Events require some measure of presentation, and two out of three of the members of their household have an incredible, truly awe-striking volume of long red hair. Not only attached to their heads requiring a number of products to properly style, but shed all over the goddamned place, from the top of the refrigerator to the inside of Sousuke’s shoes.</p>
<p>Even with the windows rolled down, the car is a sauna; the air conditioning broke last week and a standoff has fomented between Rin and himself over who is responsible for getting it fixed. It’s Sousuke, he knows it deep in his heart. But he’s worked every day this week and hasn’t had the time and telling the truth of it is less fun than teaming up with Gou and getting Rin worked up over it. Is it worth the sweat, the pocket of skin-scalding air trapped between his lower back and the thick fabric of the seat? Well, yeah.</p>
<p>“Alive for hundreds of years and never saved any money,” Sousuke chides. “The recklessness.”</p>
<p>“Oh fuck off,” Rin sasses, but he’s grinning into the breeze buffetting the rolled down window. “Hit up your sugar daddy for it already. He’s stacked.”</p>
<p>That reminds him, as he makes the final turn into Hiyosi’s parking lot. “I’m probably gonna crash there tonight after dinner.”</p>
<p>“Figured,” Rin replies.</p>
<p>Gou leans in between them from her seat in the back-middle. “Soooo when are you moving in?”</p>
<p>“I’m <em>not</em>,” Sousuke insists. “Give it a rest already.”</p>
<p>“Geriatric,” she sighs, disappointed. She’s opened up and revealed she’s a bit of a romantic in the last half year. Sousuke thought for sure she was nothing like Rin until that side of her finally came out to play. Two red-headed, red-blooded romantics badgering him at every waking moment about whatever the passion of the day may be, from films they never had a chance to see to stranger watching on the long lackadaisical walks they never got to take. It is an awful lot like Sousuke adopted a couple of reclusive elderly cats that he thought would be normal and boring until they felt safe and then all hyperactive hell broke loose. This comparison only bolstered by the fact that they’ve tried to kill him in the past. He kind of loves it.</p>
<p>Sousuke kills the engine and throws the door open. “Stop rushing me. You need my name and rent.”</p>
<p>By comparison to the enclosed car, the open air of this warm summer evening is a relief. Gou gathers two gift bags from the floor of the backseat as Rin rounds the front of the car stretched long with his arms overhead, chincy bracelets jingling. He dresses less ready for a spontaneous death metal concert these days, but it’s still a look with two orders of magnitude more chromatic accessorizing than is necessary in Sousuke’s opinion.</p>
<p>“What else could he possibly need?” Rin wonders, raising an eyebrow at the gifts as he drops his arms.</p>
<p>“It’s his birthday,” Gou answers.</p>
<p>“No it isn’t!”</p>
<p>“It’s what I decided was his birthday. And everyone should get something to open on their birthday. For your information, it’s a basil plant for his kitchen and some cat treats for the strays. Don’t be so grouchy.”</p>
<p>Sousuke only didn’t get Haru anything because Haru threatened him if he did. Besides, his dinner is free, and Sousuke works here, so it’s close enough. Rin has no good excuse not to bring something, but Sousuke knows he’s planning on gently forcing Haru to take a surf class with him next week as his own riff on a gift.</p>
<p>Inside the restaurant, Kazuma bandies about as usual, taking on too many roles. At least he’s busy. Business has been steady over the tourist months, to Kazuma’s delight. He was sure they were done for not three months ago. Not out of the woods per se, but still in business despite the odds.</p>
<p>“Sousuke!” he greets over the ruckus of the dinner rush. “They’re over by the window. Rin! Come work for me. Isuzu’s staying in France.”</p>
<p>“No! I’m sick of you Yamazakis. Bother someone else.”</p>
<p>Kazuma laughs them off and returns to his paying customers. Rin is employed under the table at a boutique across town. Anywhere not asking for identity was a good place to start for them until they can figure out how to get one; this place happens to also provide him his aforementioned accessories. Gou found work at a hotel. It’s all just to get by for now.</p>
<p>Haru and Makoto greet them with a nod and a smile, respectively. They always choose the same table next to the window, and everyone chooses the same seats. Sousuke shores up next to Makoto, naturally, while Rin sits across from him and next to Haru, and Gou chooses Sousuke or Rin depending on who has annoyed her least that particular day. Today it’s Sousuke. Rin rolls his eyes when he throws him a taunting glance.</p>
<p>Makoto reaches for and briefly squeezes Sousuke’s hand under the table, ever brusque outside of his home but never lacking in intention.</p>
<p>“We ordered already,” Makoto says. “Since you texted you’d be running late and I knew we’d all be hungry. Hope the usual is all right.”</p>
<p>They all agree that it is.</p>
<p>Kazuma personally serves up their food from the kitchen on cue, also in tune with their tempo. He has two younger, newer chefs he hired for the summer season, and they keep up all right. There’s been an appreciable success in diversifying the menu a few stages in either direction, paring down the seafood and opening up options for other proteins and fad sides. A good balance of tradition and trend so far. Sei’s randomly useful idea. Go figure.</p>
<p>Red curry for himself, green for Makoto, steaks for the siblings, and fish for Haru. They split orders of tapas-style sides of various fried and baked options.</p>
<p>Sousuke is personally still averse to eating fish. On the other hand, he is not confident Haru has tried anything else beyond a nibble so far. Haru has taken to the kitchen and enjoys experimenting with what he makes to dress or accompany it, but doesn’t vary from that central organizing principle. There are worse habits to carry over from centuries under a demonic curse, Sousuke supposes. Haru comes around to things on his own time if he’s proven anything, but he is not immovable. Even now he does not return the bite of curried chicken Makoto sets on top of the outer ring of rice in his bowl as he would’ve in the past.</p>
<p>Some nearly eight months on, the two still struggle with unforeseen difficulties in adjusting to boring mortal life. It’s part of the reason, a large part in truth, that Sousuke took up with Rin and Gou right away. They needed his help more in a physically present sense (to say, money and legally binding signatures and an unruly and intense fear of being left alone for too long) than Makoto or Haru did as they acclimated in their own homes and frequently expressed desire for space. For good reasons. There has been intermittent illness as their immune systems catch up to new threats, malnourishment as they relearn how to eat and how much to eat, anxieties and buried traumas keeping them from sleeping well, and new physical limits frustrating their days.</p>
<p>All this as Makoto and Haru work to bring their homes into the modern era to accommodate their new needs and after they quietly sloughed off The Last Drop now that there is no way to keep it hidden in plain sight from nuisances such as ordinances and credit and business regulation. It was their refuge, it kept them busy, and to abandon it so abruptly was just another kick while they were down.</p>
<p>Understandably, they all need patience and time and Sousuke foresaw that almost immediately within days of returning home and planned accordingly. For as much as Sousuke hoped it would be a simple snap back into normal living, it has been fraught with challenge and, frankly, a lot of tears and surrogate arguments among everyone.</p>
<p>But increasingly, and Sousuke thinks this as he looks around the table and sees nothing but gentle conversation and roguish delight, it is getting… easier. Better. He ends more days with Makoto than when it started, where he might not talk to him for days or see him for weeks. He doesn’t confess to the bathroom mirror anymore that he doesn’t think he can handle it, that he is going to let them all down when they need him to be a dependable example of lived normalcy the most. He can take a full breath without an avalanche of intrusive thoughts and memories burying him alive. He can recognize his own feelings more wholly and intimately whereas before he wasn’t convinced his anger or sadness or happiness or combinations therein were even his to own, and lessened is the sensation of absence that felt so raw for too long after losing his familiarship.</p>
<p>Never once did he consider he didn’t want it, only was he doubtful he was strong enough to get to this point. But, of course, they believed in him and relied on him and took care of him, too. Rin keeps him honest, Gou provides an ear that hears more than he is able to say. Haru tests food on him and he tests food on Haru, allowing him an avenue of two-way constructive feedback often serving as a proxy for working through his own muck for his own solutions. And Makoto is his champion every day in all things. He is a shield when Sousuke needs it and a sword when he asks for it and a rake to step on when he fucks up. He is incredibly lucky, unfathomably grateful, for every moment they have and all the many to come in this finite time they will share together.</p>
<p>Every day is only incrementally better, but the sum of the days so far prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. He belongs with them, and can’t entertain the thought of life without them.</p>
<p>Once dinner is over and cleared, Haru smiles when he opens his gifts, and thanks Gou for her thoughtfulness. He ribs Rin for his empty-handedness, provoking him into revealing his surprise early. They argue good-naturedly, with escalating and aggressive affirmations of commitment to their friendship as Gou asks for dessert and talks around Sousuke to Makoto about the latest development in their two-person book club. Makoto reclaims Sousuke’s hand and leans into his shoulder, all cotton short sleeves and not a stitch of sweater in sight for months now.</p>
<p>Makoto often reminds him with his touch and warmth and willful vulnerability that they never really lost anything when they lost their curse. Only gained.</p>
<p>Not a bad shake for a simple guy.</p>
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